Fun with PUGs

I know a lot of people seem to be down on PUGging, but why not share some of the good times?

(Note, I don't mean fun griefing PUGs)

I was in a PUG earlier today for Heart of the Shiverpeaks, and we ended up with 5 monks! It was amusing, but with some skill shifts, it managed to work out fairly well, and was entertaining.

I had another PUG in Dragon's Lair that was fun once we dropped the moron. We managed to clean up fairly easily.

Me, personally, have given up on PuGs. Since now every single group is Ursan and I don't use Ursan. But, one funny thing did happen yesterday. Decided to try and get a PuG for Ice Caves, for old times sake. I was on my Healer Rit, I get into a group, we're about to start and a lvl 17 wammo with Ursan says 'Ursan Lfg!' I get kicked, they take him instead of me :/ Im kinda confused..

A real long time ago, got Master's in Raisu Palace by 1 second because a wahmo got us to go ahead and skip a certain part(I don't even remember the part anymore >_>.) It saved us just enough time to get that masters. I remember it as the only time a wahmo has ever saved the day.

I have had plenty of fun with pugs before the PvE skills came into the game, many not-so-great times, but plenty of fun ones too.

got a 1:11 clear time with a fow pug couple days ago

very friendly group had a lot of fun doing it ^^

53 mins with a pug FoW HM. Not bad I guess.

Can't say I enjoy PuGs these days since most of them use a certain skill we know very well.

Today's happening:

Tried joining an ursan Norn point farming group today for the simple reason to get another maxed title (I hate ursan), 2 of the ursans left the game, one of the monks had alot of doubts we were gonna make it till the bosses and left the game too, the rest of the team continued and we reached the bosses and finished the round.

Conclusion: Even if we did it PuGs still let me down. So I'll pass and avoid them when I can.

My 2 cents.

- Ganni

I'm about 50/50 with PUGs....in time. I leave a lot of bad pugs (never the first to leave, always about the 3rd or 4th) but the ones that work out well I tend to continue on doing other things...I did 3 HM GWEN missions and a couple dungeons with 4 others and our heroes in one shot one night...complete PuG.

Was in a PUG B/P group in Tomb of the Primeval Kings a few months back. Our MM and one of the Rangers DC'd early on, our Orders Necro left partway through the run and a second Ranger DC'd as well but the four of us remaining pushed on and finished the run. Was a real blast : )

I find it pretty rare that I join a horrible PuG...and usually the bad ones contain an overbearing monk that decides to rage quit.

For example, I was doing HotS the other day and we had only one monk (a hero at that), and 7 melee classes. We had an absolute blast, alhtough we wiped a couple of times. One guy would yell out "For Frodo!" when he led the charge into a group of Destroyers...it was simply hilarious.

I made a few new friends for my Friends List on that day. We weren't perfect (or the most efficient), but we got the job done and had a good time doing it.

If you only play in ONE pug chances are that it would be Ursan, but, I've played in SEVERAL pugs and not a one was ursan. Been playing in Hell's Principe since last weekend and still no ursan pugs. Up to about 7 or 8 times now and only wiped once. People really should stop saying "every single group and/or everybody" in their posts it makes you look dumb as we know this isn't so.

I did Hell's precipice this week 4 times already and only 2 of the groups only contained 1 ursan. It's good to see groups try to be resourceful and use their class skills. But I was a mesmer echo spamming spiteful spirit instead of empathy , wipes out those titan hands and fists like no tomorrow! funtimes!

The best one I found was while doing Thirsty River.

We where so fast that we had time to chat while waiting for the timers. I nuked anything in seconds, while they kept the enemies busy and away from me.

The last monk was nothing against my monk-killer specific build for that Mission, mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!

It was awesomely fast. 13..15 minutes or so.

I actually had fun in an HA pug a few weeks ago. We were unranked and none of us were wonderful pvp'ers yet on the other hand none of the bars were spectacularly horrible either.

As can be expected, we lost a lot of matches in the Underworld yet every once in awhile we won one. After enduring many many many rants of "u suck! slit wrists please" from our opponents it was fun to discover:
"Yes!! We suck less than at least 1 other team!!!!" when winning in the underworld. We had a lot of laughs and enjoyed each others company.

Our battlecry became "Yes!! We suck less than at least <x> other teams" each time we won. We managed to win once at Fetid River but that was the best we did.

Overall a lot more fun than most of the serious HA teams I've been in.

I pick up a PUG member once in a while when doing something Normal Mode and still enjoy it.
Recently me and guildie got a PUG member in Ice Caves of Sorrow mission.
Guildie was already suffering from lag a lot and had 007 d/c on two attempts before we got that PUG.
My guildie got d/c again and called it a day, me and the PUG continued to play the mission and bonus and had a good time.

I doubt I will play in a full team of random people that often, just a lot of risk of things to go wrong.
But taking someone in a known group or when playing H&H is no problem for me.

I don't tend to use PUGs much at all, in my experience, people tend to run ahead too much, and/or act like know it alls which can sometime get us killed badly >_<

Since this is supposed to be a thread about FUN with PUGs (not "that time a PUG sucked"), I'll share a positive story.

I've never had the experience with the overbearing monks (snotty warriors who rush in and get themselves killed, maybe ), but I have commonly been the overstressed monk. I remember once I was doing Gyala Hatchery on my monk, and I hit a bit of lag. We were really kicking butt when it happened, and I was watching our assassin dip lower and lower and was swearing and hitting the buttons as fast as I could. All I saw was my entire skillbar sitting there like it was ready to go but not going!

About the point where the assassin was about to die, the lag cleared up, he got healed, and I breathed a huge sigh of relief and braced myself to get cussed out for taking so long. Instead, the assassin says "I was almost dead but you saved me! You're SUPER MONK! " I don't monk for appreciation - a good job is it's own reward - but I'm not going to complain about it, either. We finished up and had a blast.

Let's see... Gate of Pain. I hate that mission, and have never manged to get through it without a PUG. My most recent trip through (on Elinora), it was pretty hard to get a good group. We lost one person partway through, and failed the first time. Some people quit the group over that, but we rounded up a few more and managed it. At one point, I was the only person alive, and was res'ing everyone from afar. We gave it another go, and the group was so positive and funny even in the face of all of this. When we got through, we were all so thrilled.

I've actually had far more good PUG experiences than bad - maybe it's because I keep my expectations pretty reasonable and just go in expecting to have fun and hang with some people. Usually, I'm pleasantly surprised.

I'm considering PUGing all of EotN with my monk, but my time is so limited that I never know if I'll have to ditch halfway through something. It's the only reason I don't PUG - I might have 2 hours, or I might end up having only 20 minutes, and I'd hate to leave someone in the lurch.

It was with myself as a paragon, with 2 restoration/channeling hybrid rit heroes, a mm hero, and 4 pug assassins. This was during the factions missions (where everyone avoids assassins because they have a bad rep there). Thankfully, the assassins all had decent builds and didn't die once, and we just blasted through the areas insanely fast from Nahpui until we split after Sunjiang. Still my best time for Nahpui (11:42), Tahnnakai (11:11), and Arborstone(17:05).

When I actually bother going about finding a pug group, as long as I have 3 well set up heroes and can make sure that there aren't horrible builds in the group, I usually win.

I find that the best pugs are ones where the mission doesn't go well, yet despite the difficulties the team doesn't lose it's cool.

I had an experience about a year or year and half ago at Tahnnaki Temple. This was a mission that went bad from the start. I was pugging and we needed 1 monk to go. We had 7/8 and no monk. Our leader was random inviting any monks he saw. (A very bad idea)

I saw a monk in local typing "Monk for hire. 3k for mission". Our leader random invited him just like every other monk in town. I highly doubt that he saw the "for sale" message.

As soon as the monk joined our leader hit enter mission before the monk could ask for payment. (another really bad idea) As soon as we loaded in, the monk asked for payment or he wouldn't heal us.

I refused. I never pay for runs. I'd rather just h/h the mission and I wasn't the one who invited the monk in the first place. Our leader said he didn't realize the monk wanted money. (Probably true). A warrior on the team said he would pay after the 3rd boss. The leader was just pushing everyone to get started as the clock was ticking.

We proceeded and got thru the first 3 bosses easily. The monk again asks for his money and the general response from the leader was "just keep healing!!! Come on. Clock's ticking!! Gogogo!!!" After the 4th boss the warrior that promised payment admitted that he had no cash. The monk refuses to help anymore and just sits down.

I know, this really sounds like a horrible pug story. But it wasn't. The monk didn't ragequit. He helped us thru the first 4 bosses and even after he quit helping he still cheered us on in team chat. The others on the team were giving the monk a hard time for quitting on us, but it was more good natured ribbing than pure malice. We had a good time despite the horrible problems that really should have destroyed most pugs.

I think the monk realized that the invite was accidental rather than an intentional ripoff and most of the team realized that the monk was a runner for hire only after the mission started and it was too late.

In the end we did complete the mission monkless, but no masters of course.

Well I can say in my 3 years of playing this I've been in a lot more good pugs than I ever have been in bad ones. People make mistakes I expect that, people like to play their characters and bars the way they want to play them I expect and allow that (this is an issue many make into bad pugging because they want to control peoples builds). I expect there to be wipes from time to time especially when many of the group are new to the mission. I don't expect everyone to be an expert or even great if they are just fair and halfway listen to instructions from those that do know the mission I don't have issues with them. Pugging should be fun an entertaining not a controlling or controlled atmosphere with dictators. If someone asks to see my bar I will que it up, but, when they start telling me what should be on it I will leave. Suggesting is different, but, telling is quite another. Like where there is a lot of degen I will "suggest" monks bring breeze and kindly mention why. If they bring it fine, if they don't I'm not going to throw a temper tantrum or boot them. You'll find you'll catch a lot more flies with honey than you will with that other substance they eat.

I have had plenty of PUG fun before heroes were introduced. Less afterwards.

The great times i recall is getting masters reward on all Cantha missions (normal mode) with only PUGs.


I still love PUGs, tho with the introduction of more EotN heroes and Ursan, theyre nearly impossible to find. *cry*

Had great fun in a PUG yesterday in Darkrime Delves with some very pleasant people. Encouraged by that experience I decided to help someone out with a quest at Longeye's Ledge today - big mistake. Quite possibly the worst builds I've seen, and I stuck at it as long as I could bear.

An R/A with vamp daggers, full assassin skills except Ursan? Sigh!

I just had a VERY successful PUG there for Hell's Princepe

We had me and my girlfriend, and 3 other humans along with one of thems two monk heroes and one other human took Zhed along

The one with the two monk heroes seemed to be the most experience, he knew when and where to pull, who to go for and everyone followed his orders which helped us get through it.

The seer however died so we didn't get the bonus but we would have done IF the seer survived so thats nice to know

BEST PUG I have ever done to date

Ahh hell's precipice!

My last pug for that was a week ago. I was trying to get my monk through it so usually I'll just try to keep the team alive and stay in the back and relax but I had to keep typing do "redirect" the damage constantly to keep the kill order else we'd be swamped by those titan fists/hands. Fun times trying to heal and direct. I didn't want to call targets (ctrl-space) cause 2 peeps where doing it and adding one more wasn't going to help. It was successful though with 0 wipes! wooo!

Me and a couple friends got some PuGs to do Tombs a loooooooong time ago.

We did fine on the first floor, but we got to the second, and one of our B/P's had to go. We figured we still gots our monk and MM, so we're good.

Got to the third floor and halfway through lost another B/P. Figured same thing so we kept at it.

Right at the start of the 4th, we lose our Orders guy. It's now just a MM, Monk and 3 B/P's-with only me having any experience (and it was only my 4th time too). So I say I'll do the pulling and we'll try it.

Cleared it in a great time too. While the 3 that left erked us a little, me and my friend still talk about this run as the best Tombs run we've done.

I have great fun in pugs on Lotro...oooooooh wait.

I haven't pugged in GW for 2 years.

I was cleaning up NF quests I've missed before I start GWEN recently, but got hung up on Troubled Keeper. (For anyone who doesn't know/remember or is too lazy for wiki, it's the Master quest in Gate of Torment where you have to defend against mobs from two sides). After another failed H/H attempt, I picked up a stray skill- and hero-deprived Dervish and two similarly "disabled" Paragons. The three of them+monk got rolled on their side, so we decided to change tactics: I would Ob Tank, and the rest of them (with a Necro, who was a guildie of one of the Paragons) would clear their side and come over when done.

Apparently, the four of my PuGmates were as frustrated with that quest as I was, because they wouldn't stop praising my tanking and "showing them new ways of playing the game." Good times

Though you have no choice in the matter since game picks for you i had fun with a PUG in the Dragon Arena. We where the last group left when the event ended, the last group appeared to be synced so it was a little sweeter to win that one. Even more so since it was a team or most of a team i guess that had a 201 win streak at one of the previous events. Who knows about that or cares, but ive never heard of so many wins in a row but it was just fun to have no opponents.

Normally, doing unwaking waters is a total drag.
Doing it in five minutes was fun, though.

I only pug in places that have a high success rate.

Tyria Missions NM is not bad to pug, and FoW (gasp* ursan) does well with pugs lately.

I hero/hench just about all the nightfall and cantha missions...

the leechers/ragequitters/etc dont really bother me anymore...i've just accepted that you will get those now and then if you join pick up groups.

Oooh here's a good PUG I had when the day Proph greens were released.

Hell's Precipice - I'm monking for an all-melee group, bar one necro and my monk hero. 2 dervishes, 2 warriors and an ursan ranger. Was pretty fun really, everyone listened, no one messed up, the group was chatty and no one insulted another .

And I kept killing myself ._.

A while back, an Alliance Battle PuG and I managed to turn a whole game around... We were losing 400 to 240, and we somehow rallied the whole Luxon team, captured every single shrine, blockaded the Kurzicks in their base, and wound up winning. That felt... good.

I did 2 more pugs this morning that were enjoyable in Destruction's Depths and A Time for Heroes.

Had some antsy players in the first group, had to get them to slow down a bit (I can't heal you if you're too far ahead of me), but we managed the mission, everyone was nice, and we had fun.

In A Time for Heroes, we took a few attempts, and a had problems with players following the path, but it was sweeter once we finally got it done. One of the guys was a little angry, but mostly out of knowing what to do and not finding players willing to listen to him.

I guess it depends on what character I'm playing. With my monk, I find PUGging useful, because it's easier to have a live player initiate the attacks so I don't have to (If I can't find a guildie). And honestly, part of the fun is to do things with people.

Met a few members that i've recruited into my guild that way too.

I think I was in the that pug too. 'Twas a fun run.

Pugged Dragon's Lair HM recently without a hitch.

The comments and jokes are the best part of pugging, even though it might be less efficient than h&h.