Better PUGing by improving your build in 7 steps

He says that he takes PuGs as they are and assumes things about certain professions that tend to have especially bad players. If you start with the proposition that, to be polite / nice / fun/ whatever you can't fix people's builds, then you end up rejecting warriors and assassins. Minion can help these people have fun playing in his parties.

It happens very often in a PuG team. Just yesterday I played in HigherMinion's team and we had 1 quitter in the beginning (not really sure what happened). Thing is, henchmen won't quit, and humans may have IRL emergencies, or network problems, or just ragequit issues.
For instance, at one point HigherMinion disconnected. Let's say he failed to reconnect. What then? Mission failed because he was healer.
It was a great team, but I'm just saying it's not all about skillbars, with humans there's always human factor. This isn't just with PUGs, however. You have to include people you know/guildies/allies. Even though you are more likely to party with them than us.

Massacre is an overstatement. Primary rits still win out but another class can still be an effective spirit spammer. The main problem I see is prejudices against other classes as spirit spammers and the abundance of rits out there that another class going spirits is looked down upon. It is not prejudice, it is already a well known FACT that primary rits make better spirit spammers than secondary rits and primary rits are abundant.

If you like to play the role of a spirit spammer, why not just play a primary rit? There is no need to be a E/Rt spirit spammer wannabe unless the person doesnt know how to play an Ele.

Res is only a waste if everyone in the team doesn't die frequently and are reliable enough. When you pug, it's not often to get a decent monk.

A little more patience and planning can go a long way. Like the time we went to Slaver's and our party like exploded at the second group?

Massacre is an overstatement. Primary rits still win out but another class can still be an effective spirit spammer. The main problem I see is prejudices against other classes as spirit spammers and the abundance of rits out there that another class going spirits is looked down upon. Well when I PuG I can see what the Monks are running, so it's not that bad. If someone brings a bar with 8 heals, fine, he can (usually) still heal almost as well as Mhenlo. If the mission / quest we're doing is hard, I can supplement him with ER Prot myself. Otherwise just having Aegis and Prot Spirit on a hero I can micro is usually enough.

That Forgewight run was a mistake I don't see it as a patience problem though, because before we left I saw no problems with the build we had. A bit more patience and we might've remembered to bring Frozen Soil, but that's it. I learned from that run that ER heroes simply cannot be trusted, and while human ER + two Smiters is more than enough, you need a human ER.

And yeah massacre is an overstatement, when the difference (according to earlier in this thread) is about 10%. Still primary Rits are simply better, and E/Rt's are worse than N/Rt's at spirit spamming. With no advantage to speak of, why bother? Go ahead and spam spirits if there's no spirit spammer already in the party and if the party needs you as a damage character, but it's just foolish to defend E/Rt spirit spamming in general.

as long as everyone stays in the ward. Also, while the +100 armor from SY! is great, blocking/blind/blurred protects against armor-ignoring damage as well.
Still, with most PUGs, I'd go with an imbagon. So, we either stand still in the ward and get hit by the nukes, or we move out of the nukes and take very little damage?
The trouble with wards is that you need to stay in them.

There's little reason to bring such defense. SY and a couple of prots/debuffs on the midline will easily suffice (Aegis, PS and Enfeebling Blood somewhere and you're done).

So, we either stand still in the ward and get hit by the nukes, or we move out of the nukes and take very little damage?
The trouble with wards is that you need to stay in them.

There's little reason to bring such defense. SY and a couple of prots/debuffs on the midline will easily suffice (Aegis, PS and Enfeebling Blood somewhere and you're done). On rare occasions I'll run a ward or two.
Like when doing the curse of the nornbear in HM, ward of stability proved very helpfull. Combined with "I Am Unstoppable!" to ensure my ward cast won't be interrupted by a knockdown and to provide extra armor and anti cripple, I also like to put these on my ele bar when doing Dragons Lair for the warrior level.

In general I rather go full damage because most pug players ignore wards.
Seen monks run out of my ward of stability and vs melee to die 2 meters outside of it. Good game.

So, we either stand still in the ward and get hit by the nukes, or we move out of the nukes and take very little damage?
The trouble with wards is that you need to stay in them.

There's little reason to bring such defense. SY and a couple of prots/debuffs on the midline will easily suffice (Aegis, PS and Enfeebling Blood somewhere and you're done). Xeno is right. If you have SY, you only need to have PS for whoever intends to aggro all the shit, then the rest of your team can sweep it away. Overkill on protection/heals hurts the team more if you can't kill things fast enough.

And I don't see wards helping much. Get Knocked Down, expect it to happen 3 or so times during a Jotun fight, but after that use the skills you were going to use before you got KDd. I mean come on, you were expecting to get knocked down, if you were interrupted using a spell, fool on you.

Yes actually.
Savannah Heat, Searing Flames spam, Meteor Shower, Deep Freeze (+Maelstrom) etc.. - all threatening in HM and most are spammed in EotN.
These nukes can eat your henchmen alive unless you get some prots up or flag them apart. Individual humans, no matter how incompetent tend to be much more spread out than the AI and hence telling them to clump up into wards is a bit counter-productive. I tend to agree. I only bring 1 ward, WAM, on my Ele and that gets used rarely so it gets replaced with a res if it makes sense to bring one for the particular mission.

There are times when PUG monks dont use PS well or are too busy just healing and many PUG necros dont seem to like to bring enfeebling blood. Imbagons are also not common for PUGs, so bringing WAM can be useful but only sometimes. I use it more for myself by making melee monsters stand in AoE with my Ele in the ward.

The problem with Eles is that their elemental damage tend to suck in HM with the higher level and armor of the monsters. This is why I focused my Ele HM build towards AP+PvE skills for armor ignoring damage and high damage, high recharge, AoE spells that also provide good utility.