Devil's Advocate for PUGs

Um... yes, they are bad players. Running in mindlessly at the enemies is one of the qualities seen in bad players.

This is why we hate shit like Ursan Blessing, SY Paragons, etc. It lets bad players play badly.

Also, I'd be more inclined to teach new players if it wasn't for titles, armour with costs, etc. I barely play anymore, so when I do play, I like to actually get something done. If it wasn't possible to actually get any more benefit past what I already have, I would be far more inclined to risk the brutal failure of a PUG and try to relive the old times.

So true.

I pugged Thirsty River with a group that had a monk, a resto Rit, and an Imbagon. I wasn't leading and the leader (the resto rit) was taking charge of things, so I kept quiet. Needless to say, we couldn't kill fast enough and wiped when one of the enemy teams rezzed. I then said we needed more damage, he listened, changed his build and we steamrolled the mission.

Also pugged with a paragon who had never heard of an imbagon and didn't have half the skills for it. He was running smiting with 2 spear attacks. I asked him to change his build by including more shouts/chants and spear attacks and he did. Later I pm'ed him about visiting guru. He replied "Thanks" and then said that his smiting build worked well, even in HM. But atleast he knows where to go when he joins a pug and people ask him to play imba.

As someone who likes to play your typical PUG-hated professions, I am glad for h/h. Otherwise I would never be able to find a group and complete all the campaigns since I also tend to login during odd hours.

A player is not bad if he is a noob, because he can always learn. He is only bad if he refuses to be taught and refuses to learn. How you define a "bad" player is a matter of perspective.

This.

The newbie monk who curiously asked me why he shouldn't Rebirth midbattle > the HB monk who thinks everything else is noob anyday.

The reason why people don't stop to help noobs is that frequently many of them don't listen. Enough of this, and you get jaded. I think it's nice if you stop and help, but I'm not inclined to be shouted at for good intentions. I will take the time to explain if you ask, and despite what I said in the Confessions thread I don't usually yell at people, and I try to get the other monk to ping so we can work things out and sync, but if people don't want to respond well, they don't.

If every noob listened and everyone took the time to help a noob, then we'd have a non-h/h game.

/thread

Case in point. I'm running a new warrior through the torment missions, and decide to pug Shiro and Lich. After a try with a group that had 6 melee(2 dervs running AoB. Christ) and two healing heroes, we get a better mix with two real monks and go. Before the PUG, the guys said they wanted to do bonus, but when we get to Lich and Shiro, they decide to just kill them both off. Oh, and before I finally said I'd do the pulling, the HEALING MONK was going out there with a bow.

It gets better. The dervs, of course, don't have anything to wear down Shiro...nor does the other warrior. So here I am, with two monks healing and the rest WATCHING, wearing him down to nothing. WTF?

The point was, some of these guys claimed to have done it before, and were filling books. How the hell can you do something two, three, four times, and STILL be that bad? They were bragging about Dervish>warrior, yet I'm the one killing Shiro, while they treat it as a spectator sport. Yeah, people want to have fun. Fun, at least for me, is not having to do the same mish over...and over...and over, just because some ass-hat has the idea they know what they are doing. If the guys are new, I have no problem helping out. It helps them understand the game, and makes them the player I will be glad to play with down the road. It's the bad ones who think they are the sheezo that make pugging a chore.

Oh, and the pulling monk? an HB monk. Sigh.

Personally I have never seen a pug monk backline work as effectively as Mhenlo + Lina. Those two are godly compared to nearly every pug I've been with. Even with SY + TntF pugs somehow manage to die. I don't get it

I hope the fellow was protted. I've done my fair share of pulling myself: 'wait, what, the ranger doesn't have a longbow wtf?'

PUGs can use PvE skills, lead with missions/quests I'm unfamiliar with, are less likely to over-spend their energy, and can be friendly. I generally PUG or play with guild/alliance members whenever possible. Guild Wars is the only multi-player game I play.


Mhenlo tanks. = /

In that case, i wonder which parties you've hit, as there definately are decent monks out there (i pretend to be one of them ). My issues with heroes is that they need commands, while i'm busy keeping everyone alive. They also tend not to kite, but just wait untill a warr slaughters them, and then rely on me to patch them up. Oh, and ever tried spiking with heroes? Usually i end up healing Tahl/Dunk more than the human members of a party.

As you could have guessed, i gladly take PuGs, provided that they aren't 'TEAM LFP for Mission!!!', who start when they have 8 randoms in.
Sure, you can H&H the whole of GW, but then go play Warcraft 3 or so...

Ask players to ping bars, especially in long/difficult/gimmicky missions. You were with the same players who failed the first time and didn't request a skill bar check/respec?

Then you've had really bad luck or you don't pug much. I've pugged with some pretty good monks. You can usually tell by the skill bars even before the action starts.

Bind the 3 spike skills to numbers 1, 2, 3 on the NumPad. You can run a 4-player spike (assuming you've got an attack skill) easily. Unless you're on vent with a guild group, you won't find better in PvE.

A macro hero spike will be perfectly timed, more so than a group of people yammering on a VoIP.

Do I win?





Anyways, on topic, I suppose I have to be in a froggy mood when I'm attempting a pug group. I'll go into it knowing that there's a good chance of failing, hoping for the best and expecting the worst.

Occasionally, my guildies and I will take the lonely lfg person in an outpost, and run some nutball builds and rush thru it, taking stupid things like hammer rits and beastmaster mesmers and worse, and still come out fairly intact. It's amusing, dragging an innocent bystander into one of our Rube Goldberg teams, gumping our way thru in record times while c-spacing to victory. Good times!

I feel I may have been one of the bad team members mentioned in this thread, but only because I really didn't have a clue as to what was expected of me.

Now, when somebody in the group pulled me up and told me where I was gong wrong. I learned, and as a result became a better player.

It is very hard for me to learn how to play, when experienced players won't speak to me or just resign, leaving me to it.

We should have a "Newbie" sign over our heads until we can get it right.

Yep Pug does'nt listen to suggestion that much. Today at Bolris pass hardmode. I play my usual interrupt ranger.First group got wipe and quit right away.Second group did the missons twice before get wiped and then back to LFG.Both group have 2 fire ele who use noting that will help them survie on thier own.

Hardly finding anyone getting away from standard builds that don't work well with the misson.

If you listen then you're not a bad player.

I pugged borlis today, apart from an ele leaving midway through it was fine, we got mission and bonus first time.

Although people were making mistakes I didn't really point it out since we were doing fine anyway and it's PvE. Sometimes people just can't be bothered to give advice. I find giving advice causes alot of tension, even when accepted.

No, we wouldn't.
People playing better does nothing about the other issues which lead to playing with heroes.

Today's Borlis Pass was a classic example between PUGs and heroes.

I joined a PUG that kept dying from the centaurs at the first part of the mission. One or two centaur warriors would attack the monk and he would die at the first group. Then some people would quit. I stayed on mainly because they seem like nice people and I wanted to help them. I think we succeeded to pass the mission+bonus in HM at about the 4th attempt, with some deaths.

Granted there are more successful PUGs, but since I think this should be an easy mission, I tried it with my necro (with discord heroes), and warrior on my second account. Warrior mostly does nothing and carries the torch, while I press space on my notebook repeatedly to keep up with my necro. 0 deaths, succeeded on the first try and it was an almost perfect run moving through the area at a much faster speed than the PUG did. No heroes even got below 50% health even while directly attacked thanks to my N/Rt healers. I played carelessly on purpose to see if my heroes would die by the warriors like the monk did several times but their red bars were full thanks to Weapon of Warding! That is the difference in effectiveness between a risky PUG (which maybe as weak as the one I encountered) and using my heroes.

Pretty sure not running in mindlessly at enemies means your build is bad, because PvE is almost always so damn easy that this strategy not only works but works out to be much faster than anything else.

Try that HM. Chances are, it's the good monking/support that is saving that retard from dying in his mindless charge. Take hero monks with Alesia's pre-Crystal Desert build and see how awesome-sauce you are. GG

Anet's target audience for nm PvE.

Yeah, gimp yourself with a shitty build on your monks. Sounds like a great idea. No shit it's the monks saving you. Selket's statement is still true.

I guess you missed that "try that HM" part, even though it's at the beginning of the post. The point was not whether you "can do it" I can drive with my eyes closed down a straight road for 5 seconds and, 4/5, I won't get in a wreck. Does that make me a good driver? No. It makes me an ass who is driving with his eyes closed. Airbags will keep me alive, though, so who cares? Right? Take the airbags away and throw in some twists(hard mode), and you get my ass through a windshield, which, while many would enjoy that, isn't a good thing.

The point was, doing that, whether you "can do it" or not, makes you a bad player.

GG.

It's PvE, toss up prot spirit/soa and aggro as many mobs as you know your monks can hold/team can kill quickly. I missed nothing, I helped my gf reach legendary vanquisher and guardian this way and it's remarkably quick and easy. Regardless, if you're not plowing through mobs quickly and mindlessly, your team sucks and needs reworking. PvE isn't exactly rocket science.

Somethimes I take no skills on my bar to make a mission more challenging.

One of my favorites is Shards of Orr in HM with just Prot Spirit on my monks bar. It was epic QQ back then how hard this dungeon is.

Easy to say without pics/vid. Love it when I get to wear the boots on the forums from all the bs sloshing around.

The main reason why I prefer heroes over pugs is that heroes are all behind the team strat and synergy which means my strat and how I setup bars. A pug almost never can be that synchronised and efficient unless they all are decent players standing behind the same approach. An example where it did work for the masses was Ursan, because it's a pve only skill (can not be put on heroes' bars) and well it was not hard to execute the bar which was the same for everyone in the party except for the monks who just had to keep HB up and spam Heal Party + Seed of Life. Which results again in fast setups vs a 'balanced' pug which will take much longer before you actually can start playing.

With heroes you determine yourself what the strat will be. 95% of this game, which include HM areas can be steamrolled or offense is in my personal experience the best way to go. Now with pugs, not everybody has the same style, some are more defensively orientated. Some play more in a 'relaxed' way or just wanne have some casual fun. There are many different factors why people play this game or how they enjoy playing the game. Some people play this game for the 'social' aspect and prefer teaming up with real players.

The skill or knowledge of each player is different too. If you play with heroes, the whole party has a certain level, your level or your way to setup bars and team synergy. The party will also move as one entity where as with pugs you have less control over the events. When your h/h team got wiped, you have only yourself to blame and you can work on it, make progress.

Another thing I like to point out is that with henchies, you can exactly pin point how bad they are, their shortcomings. You know what to expect and what not to expect.

It is my belief that when you have the hang of this game and you somewhat know all classes and skills, playing with h/h or 6 heroes (if you have two accounts) is always better in terms of efficiency and time than playing with a pug in most situations and with a very high succes rate.

I always try to help. ALWAYS! People often mistaken me for the ,"Anal, Know-it-all, etc..." right off the bat. Some don't even bother to listen. It's really frustrating sometimes when you have in your heart, good intentions to teach and the person being taught refuses to listen. I'm not the best player nor do I think I'm bad either but I have played this game long enough to understand it.

I find it very rewarding. A few times I've had people from seemingly out of nowhere PM me thanking me for helping them. I've helped so many people I can't possibly remember them all so when I get a "TY" it's quite the surprise even after 6+ months. It gives me a warm feeling that I've helped someone so much so that even after a lengthy period of time I've left such an impression that they still remember me 6 months down the road.

If I was in a highend PvP Guild or If I had higher ranks of some sort I'd still take PuGs in a heart beat. Winning in a video game is 1 thing. Sharing your knowledge and watching it all unfold is PRICELESS. If you think I'm an Elitist feel free to spit on me because I'd probably spit on myself. For the record, I PuG more then I H/H because I enjoy the company of strangers over my ever so silent heroes. If I fail so be it! It's not the first time and it won't be the last. I've failed just as hard with PuGs as I have with organized groups only difference is the former has a higher chance of failing.

Essential Gawd