Devil's Advocate for PUGs

I see lots of people complaining about how PUGs suck and why they would prefer to H/H instead. Well, as much as I tend to agree with most people here, I'm gonna try and look at it from the other side.

Some people aren't bad players, they just have a different style of gameplay. There are people who prefer to take things slow, pull each group back and kill the enemies stratigically. Others prefer a more "smash-the-door" in approach by screaming LEEROY! and running into the middle of the group.

There isn't anything wrong with either approach or any other style in between. It works for some people, and others it doesn't. Thats where the complaints come from. I've grouped with almost every type of player imaginable. From the strategist who plans out his builds methodically so that every skill beautifully synergizes with every other one, to the player who seems to just click random skills and goes with it. Some approaches don't work, others work only in certain situations. And for some reason that I can only describe as dumb luck, the most useless build can come through in the most unlikely of places. My friends and I tend to take an in the middle approach, where if a group is far enough away that we won't aggro, we rush in and kill anything that moves, but pull if the risk is there. (Most players tend to take this approach)

Now don't get me wrong, there are some players who are for lack of a better term BAD and are in dire need of help in game mechanics, (Echo'd Mending Whammo's, I'm looking at you) but they shouldn't automatically be delegated to the PUG category and immediately assumed to be the scum of the game. It sounds rather arrogant and elitist to me. Just because someone else's style of gameplay doesn't mesh with yours, doesn't make them bad players. And it doesn't help when you have 8 people of different skill levels all trying to play the way they normally do.

Just my $0.02

I think people who use the term "echo mending Wammos" are the real bad players, because they don't seem to understand that you can't be three professions at once.

Unless "echo mending wammo" is merely describing the act of using mending twice for the "added benefit," I would tend to agree with your statement.

As to OP: different strokes for different folks; there is not much you can do about that.

I think people that don't get the sarcasm from that and the pvp note of a bad player is called a echo mender is bad. Got that?

Back to topic. I have, like the Op, played with many differnt types of players. We had a pug in hero's ascent that did not have any elites this past weekend. Well we had some fun and ran a build I have wanted to run and 6 people on the team's bars did not have elites just for kicks and giggles. Needless to say we had a 200+ fame run with that team just fine. Im rank 8 less then 100 fame to 9 now and my guild is an r8+ guild that decided to help some r0's r1's out on there ha title this weekend. Well that guy was grateful and since then has bought the pvp unlock packs and joined my guild. He is about 60 fame from r 6 and prolly one of the fastest learners I know.

The problem isn't with pugs being bad its with people that are not willing to take the time to teach someone something they don't know.
For instance:
Go to your builds folder in your gw folder. Make folders in there and put the skill templates into correct folders. (makes your skill templates organized)
Shift or control click drag seperates stackable items.

If everyone took the time to help a noob then we would have a game not based on using h/h but rather like it was when it was just proph 3.5-4 years ago. ( I miss those days)

Well, yeah even tho what you say that the style of playing can be different, the real problem is the lack of COOPeration of some players, cos when you are playing with other ppl, the idea is to cooperate with each other so you can beat the challenge of the mission or area you are doing.

When you are doing a hard mission you need to work with your team in order to advance, but if you go with the idea you are better than everyone else and that only "you" know what it has to be done, then you better play with H/H cos "you" wont LISTEN to your team, is the simple premise "You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours", help your team and they will help you, if the monk tell you "pls dont charge in and aggro the whole map", they tell you that not bcos they want you to play their way, is bcos the monk probably wont be able to keep you alive and if you are the tank and die, then the whole team have a hard time cos no one is tanking, and most likely fail, and they want to complete the mission the same as "you", is not about saying im better player than him or them, is about COOPERATION, working as a TEAM. Teamwork.

And yeah sometimes there are just ppl that are real stupid or just plain retarded.

But if you dont listen, if you think you know it all, if you dont have patience, and dont make minimal effort to understand your team, you better stick with H/H.

The problem is that people shouldn't be doing their own thing.

People should be listening to what the leader says, then things are 100x easier. Unless the leader is bad of course but then you pick a different leader. The problem comes in pug's when people don't know what to do or think they know what to do but are afraid of mentioning it. The end result is they make a mistake that could have been easily avoided and screw up the whole party.

They aren't bad because their playstyle does not mesh with mine.
They are bad because they are unable to carry their share of the weight.

And what you described does absolutely NOTHING regarding that issue.

This. Rushing forward leads to overaggroing. Overaggroing is bad, not a play style. Theres a difference between what good players do and what bad players do, and its not this 'style of gameplay' as you call it. Do you think it's a coincedence that no good players overaggro and all the bad ones do?

Yeah, what Marty said. For something to be a play style it has to work first. overaggroing doesn't work.

I think its mainly because of the lack of leadership in GW that is the main cause of the problem.

Note: I reference to WoW a lot because I love the game. (GW is my first love).

In WoW a tank is the usually leader of the party and even if he doesn't lead, he determines the speed of the party. In GW because there is no tank that holds aggro and takes all the dmg so ppl tend to run headlong into battle thinking they can survive because they are used to being healed by their heroes but in PuGs healers are not always as efficient as heroes. Thus the reason why ppl die in PuGs and why ppl prefer heroes.

Good player/team can relentlessly press forward without having to carefully dissect mobs or having to take energy breaks and can continue doing so till area is finished. That depends on team being able to keep up and know what is going on.

Bad player casts mending, rushes in and dies while others go wtf while they lag behind just close enough to get taste of aggro and wipe.

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Good players carefully examines mob patrol patterns and separates mobs, finishing each groups easily and efficiently while staying safe from unpleasant surprises. Granted everyone in party has a bit of patience, area is completed easily and fast enough.

Bad player spends 10 minutes waiting for golden moment wasting everyone time with, Then pulls with bow and suprise, suprise, has fairly decent chance to pull something party will not manage anyway. Several hours later, people fell asleep and party wipes.

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Aaaaanyhow, GW as game is more suitable for rush playstyle. Learning to rush is learning how to deal with stress. Anyone who did Dzagonur Bastilion can tell you how valuable that is.

I have a fast, active playstyle. My heroes can keep up so it works. They can keep up because I always take the warrior henchman with "Charge!"...as I'm always running rock candy or cupcakes for that constant speed boost. When I pug, I get pissed because I'm used to my heroes being on my ass ready with the pain and gain...human players are usually just sitting back going "wtf is he doing?" because they're likely too used to the careful cautious players. This is why, when I do GOLEM, I insist on using three of my heroes for my side and I'm always running over to the other side to help. People just don't seem to be able to handle something they can't control the pace of.

When we had the Bloodstone cave bounty a few days back I impressed a hell of a lot of people with my warrior's build, because I was able to run into a mob and take them all down to 3/4 health in a few seconds and we had good monks who were quick on the heals and knew to keep close but not too close. Everyone else was pretty much just along for the ride. It was the fastest pug dungeon I've ever done...20 minutes from start to finish, with "overaggro" of all three final groups wallblocked on the left pillar. Healing seed saved my ass that time, and Hundred Blades with EBSOH and Whirlwind attack was an amazing amount of yellow numbers.

And when I'm not running warrior, I'm usually getting pissed that the group isn't moving as fast as I'm accustomed to...and when the "tank" starts yelling at me to get back, I laugh and ask him why he's being such a friggin wuss, knowing that I'd have been knee-deep in those red dots and tearing shit up 5 minutes ago. It got me through legendary vanquisher, even before the HBlades buff...it's called knowing how to manage the aggro that you get. If the enemies are a bunch of spikers, I'll be more cautious. But if it's a bunch of early-area hard moders with the only difference being HP, base damage and having an elite...I'll dive head-first into them without a worry.

In my experience the PUG is a mixed blessing. It tends to be if people are willing to listen the group does a lot better. Back about a year or two ago I took one of my guildies into DOA (in a PUG) on their mesmer. Mind you they had never been. I took the time to explain what was going on and they had the for site to ask if they were unsure. The real kicker is everyone else in the group thought my guildy was a pro. So I have no problems with PUGS as long as the person listens and asks questions.

The bad:
The majority of people it seems are players in the younger years who simply want to do things their way, without listening to anyone else. A few examples:
1) Entering the mission many times before everyone is ready. Nothing more kills party moral. When you spend 10 minutes zoning back and forth because someone will not let the party spec completely.

2) Bad team composition. This tends to happen in alliances/guilds where people want to include everyone even if it is not in the best interest. For instance Dasha Vestible HM with no MM's and a primarily melee team (no monks). Certain missions require some planning at least what composition of classes you bring. You cannot always take everyone.

3) Rude people. Pretty much people who insult and are a general pain to everyone else. Like insulting a monk for not healing them when they over extending, using really racist and derogatory statements towards them. It really is not needed and only serves to divide the team.

4) And lastly pulling extra agro when your team is already engaged or pulling when your team is not ready. I cannot count the times I have been in a pug and someone pulls agro from behind us while we are already tanking something infront causing a party wipe, or pulls while the monk is recharging a bit of energy due to prolonged healing.

All and all this can be remedied by one thing, players listening.

The Good:
Now I have also had a few good pug groups. With these I meet great individuals who I would gladly play with in the future. If it were not for the pug experience I would of never met them. Also the social aspect of the game adds a lot of value to it. Additionally I have found playing with other players and being willing to change your bar actually is great. Sure you might run a bar you are unaccustomed to and may not be your cup of tea. But on the flip side you learn a lot about other peoples play styles and may be able to adapt use some skills which you would of never thought of yourself. Heck, you might find a new play style for that particular class re-invigorating your passion for playing.

In conclusion, the game would be a lot better if more people took the time to slow down a bit and listen. It is all fun to go racing through and plowing everything in your path (if your party is capable of doing so) but sometimes there needs to be a bit of planning and communication. Pugs are a great way to meet new people and become a better player yourself, however, the odds of meeting a good person is rather slim.

I have a habit of helping newbs with the "difficult" NM missions, and one of the problems I see with pugs the most is the fact that they set up too hyper defensively. They'll fail a mission once and bring more defence, fail again and bring yet even more - which leads to them not being able to kill a thing.

Two monks with some utility prot on a midliner is more than enough to keep your party safe the entire game.. as long as you pack enough of a punch to clear the enemies. This is where pugs go wrong - it's very uncommon for me to see a PUG without at least 1 self heal on his skillbar, and usually it's more along the lines of two or three.

Because of this, I've adopted the following policy in PUGging: You listen to me, and we will get through this. I will keep you alive, you keep the other things dead. If you don't listen to me, I won't bother coming along. You don't need 3 monks. You certainly don't need four. Especially in NM. The best defence is a good offence. This is why I always make certain that the PUGs have a decent damage output, and I explain why it's important. If they accept the explanation - great, the mission will be a breeze. If they don't and rage (usually RoF spamming warriors, or Healing Hands/Shield of Regen warriors) - whatever.

"Rushing" is the best playstyle with good groups. By this I don't mean charging in head-first, aggroing 20 groups - but I do mean rushing in, aggroing 3 or 4, and bodyblocking them against a wall. You don't have to worry too much about random patrols either, if your group is good enough - by the time an other patrol reaches you the original group should already be dead.

I think people who don't get the joke are the worst players. Sarcasm for the win.

I have come across a mending wammo that completed prohecies using it. He had (as far as i could tell) pretty much completed prophecies with hench only, and his mending build (and hench) were failing him on the titan quest Last Day Dawns.

They were just too low level and his mending and orison couldn't keep them (or him) alive! With some help from myself and changes to his build (removal of monk skills from his bar, add IAS etc), he was able to complete the quest and move on to the next one! Hopefull he hasn't put mending back on his skill bar!

The moment that approach doesn't work, or drags the team down, someone else has to cover that player's ass. That's when he becomes a liability.

I agree with you - not every person in a PUG is bad, but the difference is: I know what my guildies can do. I know how they play. They know how I play. We can sit down and work things out, and we're all willing to discuss builds. This is not necessarily the case with PUGs. Maybe someone's style might mesh with mine, but the likelihood is that it won't.

I PUG on my monk because it keeps me on my toes. (My guildies spoil me outrageously to the point where I can actually fall asleep during VQing...) I do meet some great groups, but by and large they are not the norm. I can change my bar if you want, and I will gladly modify it to whatever situation we're handling - just say it nicely. The latter can be sadly lacking. If you demand that I run HB without any reason, if I ask you to ping so we can sync bars and you don't, if you're going to sit there and call me names, there's a little teamwork problem right there.

For certain missions, you have to trust me, and I have to be able to trust you. If you don't trust your monk to take you through a mission like Divinity Coast, and the monk can't be certain you'll back him or her up, how do you expect to get through it? I don't PUG missions like that. I can't be certain of the people I'm playing with.

PUGging is fun, to some degree. Repeating a mission again and again is not, especially if it's a mission I know I could clear if it wasn't for random idiot who couldn't kill a thing. If my first PUG group can't clear the mission, I leave it for my guildies.

And this is why I'm still not jaded enough to leave off PUGging entirely. The great people make it worthwhile. I'm just not willing to endure the bad ones as much anymore.

Unfortunately many warriors/tanks (not necessarily warriors) don't understand the mechanics of GW enemy AI. As a result they can't effectively manage the aggro well. This was the subject of at least one article here on Guru written way back at the start of the game, but few seemed to read and understand. The management of aggro a two way thing - if the party comes in too quick then its all for nothing. So it requires knowledge and skill on the part of the frontline and patience and pre prot on the side of the party. When it works, the frontline doesn't even need a full tanking build.

Its worth noting that its harder for monks to keep an entire party alive than it is one person. Once you have prot on one person, you can keep them alive pretty well with minimal energy usage. Spread out the damage and it becomes much harder.

I wish there were more like you.

I've not heard anyone say this in a long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long time, and I think its a great thing you guys are doing that, helping rankless players to get more acquainted with the game! WAY TO GO.

Yeah it's great that some people still put in the time and effort to help others, but you can't expect everyone to do that...

I was one of those that lucked out at HA double weekend and found a good guild to get lots of fame with. The sad thing is that outside of double weekends HA is mainly dead thanks to all the discrimination and refusal to take new players.

The rare times I've pugged (haven't done so in almost three years), I mainly had great experiences. Sure, there was the odd time when someone took the game too seriously, was a know-it-all, aggroed everything on the map simultaneously, or drew genitals on the radar, but that rarely happened. I have some great memories of missions with strangers (those done with "weird" groups were especially fun--I remember doing Hell's Precipice with six warriors and two monks, and The Wilds with 5 eles and one monk--that last run was a blast--literally).

I mainly H/H because I hate wasting time to form a group, and it's doubly annoying if I've waited a while and it turns out to be one of the rare bad pugs. I can also AFK whenever I want when I'm running with H/H. And I can try out weird builds on my heroes, or run a weird build myself without getting grief from other players (I have a ranger who doesn't use a bow, for example--she's a pure beastmaster--try taking her into a group with a bunch of anal know-it-alls). I do group (even with the pure beastmaster!), but not with pugs. Always with players I "know".

As much as I agree with you, sometimes I like to run around, aggro a few groups on my char, have them ball up, and let my SS do the work.

aside from that, I'm a puller.

To be honest, I hate taking players for most things because quite often i'll go afk mid-mission to watch tv or play something else :P

I like hero henchies coz i can do the "LEEEEEEEEEEROY" and deaths charge into a mob with frenzy up and start wacking things and when my heroes catch up and cast RoJ and the mob dies i can go LOL PWNED NOOBZ. and then rush the next mob. I cant do that with a pug coz a) they will mostly be afk, b) they will have crap builds and c) they wont realise that im in the wrong mob ><.

See, this is one of major pug issues. People have this weird antagonism to loosing. Taking hmmm ... 'fun' ... builds that are widely known to be kinda sucky (visit ranger forum for beastmaster complaints) to PuG is simply bad form. Doing it with attitude is even worse; 'Anal know it all that want party to succeed' versus 'me, my fav build and pet'. Taking sides here is easy

Rule 1 Of Playing With Humans: Do your best to help group succeed. Ego and playing fav build kinda comes second to that. Maybe, you know, bringing build that contributes more might be also more rewarding? Smoothly running group is wonderfull experience. And 'smoothly running' part starts in outpost with people being okay with each other builds and roles.

There is reason why, when I group with people I would drop my Me/D and Rt/D scythe users builds in favor of something that will not freak people out.

Made fullstop where you could have ended. GW was just not meant to be tanked'n'spanked.

How can you overaggro with a minion wall and save yourselves????
Anyway, there is many reasons why h/h or 6 heroes and a friend are better than PUGs.
1. You won't take forever to form.
2. No one will cry when you rq for GvG.
3. You don't have to explain people why their bars are bad and wait for them to buy skills.
4. There's a certain guarantee that there is no other human player is going to RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO up.

I think you misunderstood my point. I don't group when playing her because I know there will be players who won't appreciate her, um, build and that it wouldn't be fair to the group. I was explaining why I'll usually take H/H over grouping. If I was one of those players 'with attitude about my fav build and not caring about helping the group', I'd join pugs and then get snotty when I was asked to change her build. I don't. When I play her in a group, it's with people I know who also like to mix it up a bit and have fun. I don't pug with her precisely because it would be "bad form".

The reference to the "anal know-it-alls" was about folks who insist that you must have skill X or run build Y to succeed in NORMAL MODE. Heck, my cat can play GW in normal mode by stomping over the keyboard at random intervals. For HM and elite areas, I can understand not wanting everyone to run with "creative" builds, but for normal mode, pretty much anything can succeed if it's halfway reasonable and nobody does anything stupid.

And this is why PuGs will fail, because chances are, between however many people you have in your party, someone has different intentions on how to play than someone else, and those clashing ideas can easily wipe the party in a critical moment. The only plan you have to go with and worry about in H/H is yours. In most cases, that's worth having the H/H over other players with OP PvE-only skills and (the possible existence of) a brain.

Yes I did read too fast, sorry

the only caliber of players that search for groups in towns are the ones that are not able to do it alone with h/h. therefore, in general, pugs will be a lower quality of player due to the fact that they are looking to pug a team in the first place.

I don't know.... i have great heroes and almost every skill there is. I still like to search for a pug/guild team first before I go at it H/H. (HM ofc)

I used to like/tolerate PUGs, that was until the z-quests started. Now, it is easy to find people to do a quest/mission, but the least-capable, least aware players in the game are showing up in places like DoA to ruin missions that should be relatively easy.

The entertaining middle ground for me is to do things with my alliance, and sometimes bringing one random pugly. This creates potential for finding new guildies, and also provides a little variety in the experince of the mission/quest. Once in awhile, we even come across someone that has a technique more efficient than what we were using.

Since the onset of the Z quests, I've made an active attempt to PUG more. I Pugged the Immolated bounty yesterday and failed 8 times before a group made the kill! Two of those groups wiped on the first harpy mob. Both of those groups had 2 monks...

I h/h'd my way to legendary vanquisher, blah, blah, (insert resume here). Lots of groups are just poorly constructed.

But unfortunately by pandering to people’s ignorance you just maintain the status quo.

I’d take a mesmer on any team, There isn’t much they can’t cope with.

Thank you for that...I almost choked on my gum LOL.


(Just to be on topic...well, my heroes and the henchies have never said "I'm a W/Mo, I can heal!" nor has Olias ever brought demonic flesh along with saccing skills. Haven't seen Alesia cast any Meteor Showers lately, but I wouldn't put it past her. More to the point, I don't have enough RL playing time to waste dealing with other people's issues (i.e. PUGs), especially in HM. It's far more efficient to use H/H, and really the only practical way for me to play.)

If the endgame quote is any indication, I think she'd rather take Frenzy.

I liked them until Ursan. Z-quests gave me a reason to PUG again, actually.

I agree. I took my discordway+Rojway 6 heroes team and completed that bounty in HM, and succeeded with 0 deaths on the FIRST try.

I was even too lazy to muck around my heroes's skills for Extinguish, or bring Breath of the Great Dwarf, or something anti-fire.

So do I.

I always try to go with humans, h/h is boring. Heroes, to be honest destroyed GW for me. I rarely play NF cause of it. Proph and Factions in the beginner part were no heroes are around is my favorite PVE areas.

As for PVP I always go AB. In AB I can have fun. No, you must have this build. Or, you dont have R X in a title. Its plain FUN. Yes teams and people who dont cap in AB ruin it for whole team. Although I have fun when losing too. By beating another players build with mine. And with all the wikibuilds in AB its real easy. Its the random new and unexpected builds that are hard to defeat.

I never force someone to use a certain build. I hope they can handle the build they made. And if they can't, then I try to do my best to make it anyway.

Its a game and people tend to get to serious about it. As with all games, it is there for you to have FUN. If you dont have fun then you shouldn't play it.

Maybe its only me who thinks this way.

This used to be the case until they added titles, and other rewards that only titles can grant.

Need a 20-slot equipment pack for your farming character? Grind. Want a rainbow phoenix? Grind. Want a full HoM for your GW2 character? Grind.

No time to grind all that? Rush, rush, rush. If only everything is made available to everybody without putting time into the game, then that would come true, even if fewer people play because of fewer grind, but I doubt that would happen.