Devil's Advocate for PUGs

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.