The Horror of Frost Gate (or, Why I love H/H)

Sigh.

I like running with humans. Really, I do. But it just isn't worth the effort...

Case in point, today's Z-Mission, The Frost Gate.

I have two main characters, a Ranger and a Ritualist. I'm sure you can guess which one can find a mission without even trying; my Rit gets pinged the moment she land sin an active district.

My ranger? Not so lucky. My most effective HM build is based around my pet and Enraged Lunge; I gave up a long time ago trying to run that with humans. So I run Splinter Barrage.

The Rit gets a group in a few minutes; it usually takes 15-20 minutes to find a group with the Ranger.

The Rit got thru, with bonus, in one shot. Not bad.

Alas, my poor Ranger was not so lucky.

Her first group argued halfway in about the route. Multiple people drawing on the map, eventually someone rage quit and the group broke up.

Second group started well, then 2/3rds of the way thru, the warrior/leader went afk and never came back. We forged ahead, got to the last set of mechanisms, and we near-wiped; the lone survivor was our SoS Rit, who wasn't carrying a rez. So he quit, group failed.

Frustrated, my ranger took Jora (Dragon Slash), Gwen (Pain Dom), Vekk (Dirt Bunny), Alesia, and Orion. Took about 15 minutes, I got bonus + mission on Hard Mode.

Oh, and I ran my favored Enraged Lunge build.

The heroes and hench didn't bitch about my build; none of them went AFK (though Alesia did die a lot for some damned reason). I didn't use any consummables or magic cookies; there were no arguments. Oh, and most of them carried a rez, too!

So when someone claims that heroes and henchmen ruined PuGs -- that's a load of BS. What ruined PuGs were ill-behaved players who argue and don't bring a farkin' rez.

Yeah, people are stupid. I realised this in 2005. If you want reliability and success, play H/H. If you want to play with other people, find in-game friends or guildies who want to play as well. Being in a PuG when H/H is an option is just making life harder for yourself.

most missions I do with my h/h the exceptions are the ones that peeps need to be in 2 places at the same time (eternal grove comes to mind).....otherwise, yeah my mesmer can run her pet build and dunko never says anything bad about it

Just a bit of advice, if doing HM with h/h i would drop jora for a soul twisting rit, using Soul twisting(elite) displacement, union and shelter. these 3 spirits will make it nearly impossible for any one on you're team to die. Other skills i use are boon of creation, w/e that signet is that gives u energy when in range of a spirit and the one that makes ur spirits take half damage. This build provides 75% blocking cannot lose more than 10%-15 health. Garantee to work 100% of the time for any mission. Also instead of Dirt Bunny(assuming you mean he's running earth build IE. Sandstorm/Unsteady ground) I would run an SoS rit with the basic signet of spirits, bloodsong, splinterweapon(with melee) Anc. rage w/o. and 3 resto skills being protective was kaoli, mend body and soul, spirit light. With siphon spirit for easy emangement.

The only situation in which a PUG beats out a H/H group is when you want to roll a Healer, and even then, a properly built H/H team will get things done, just slower and with less direction.

Even when healing the amount of dumbassery is astounding. My ER ele is by far a more efficient healer than my Mo and he takes a good 15 minutes to find a group that knows it's s*** enough to send an invite.

This is not new or exciting; PUGs (especially during USA primetime) blow chunks and H/H don't backtalk and are adequate.

This, pretty much. Outfitting my heroes has been the best IG investment ever.

Thanks for the advice, but I know all of that. Oh, there are lots of other hero combos I could use; my two mains have 26 heroes each, of which 12-15 are fully insigned (sp?) & runed. I could run any of the popular "ways", even the new Mesway. In fact, I have Mesway and Spiritway available to both mains.

I just don't use them. Here's the funny part: I've vanquished, quite comfortable, across Tyria, running Jora, Hayda, and Gwen or Livia. It's not that I'm awesome or any such thing -- it's that there are many ways to play the game that don't include Spiritway, Sabway, Discordway, Mesway, or whatever.

On my ranger, I like to run a group that different from what my Ritualist, Necromancer, or Mesmer run. That keeps the game fresh across different characters.

My favored heroes: Jora (Sword), Hayda (many builds), Gwen (love Panic/Psychic Instability), Tahlkora (RoJ SMite), Vekk (Sandstorm/Churning Earth/Wards), Xandra (Prot Spirits), and Livia (various MM builds).

I wasn't trying to say anything new; I'm just tired of all the whiny anti-hero crap. Most of the people who whine won't run with my characters anyway.

Why do groups stand around for hours, spamming "GLF 2 monks 2 go!" -- particularly when it's a six-man mission? Who NEEDS two healing monks on a six-man? And why not just throw on heroes and GO, rather than spam for hours? Really dumb.

I just helped my daughter through the Attack on Jalis' Camp quest. We had two healer heroes, both N/Rt (She was running Discordway, I think). My monk was running a Smite-only build! No problem -- no deaths.

Sadly, this proves a very real point.

If you choose to run an okay or mediocre build, you will likely be grouped with people who will do the same. Your chance for success will diminish, causing frustration and rage, and your time will likely be wasted one way or another.

Dervish, Ranger, and non-Imba Paragon PvE buffs can't come sooner.

H/H'd this not long ago for Guardian. No problem at all.

Just H/H when you don't get into PUGs when you won't be permitted to run your happy builds. Problem solved.

While we're on the subject on posting personnal toughts on forums :

maybe I'm just lucky and unlucky. Lucky because I can find group fast with any character and I rarely dramatically fail with pugs, but then again mes and rits are mainstream classes, so maybe that helps.
Unlucky because on any character I alway take longer than people say to find groups. Like 2 min... Short anyway.
Or maybe my criterias for failing is higher than other people... Wiping once isn't that bad, the second times gets on my nerves tought.

Doesn't change anything.
There's more whiny anti-human crap.

Communicate with your current group, find a different group, make your own, or H/H.
But choosing to do so goes for all professions.

My point was that hopefully your guild of choice contains members that aren't complete idiots. Otherwise why would you bother sticking around? PuG people tend to have an 'omfg of course I know more than you idiot, why are you telling me crap suggestions' mindset but if they know the person thats talking to them (i.e, guildies) that should actually process the information.

So advice or a suggestion from a guild member is correct or good? If a suggestion or information is good it's good and bad if it's bad. The player will still have to "process the information."

No, I was saying that hopefully the people in the guild you choose to be in are intelligent. I don't know about you but I don't like to spend my time listening to stupid immature 12 year olds. I would trust what my guildies say over what random people say because I know that my guildies are mature and use their brain. I imagine the same applies to other people.

Most of the best players I've played with or befriended came from PUGs and I'd never give them up. Bars become tighter in harder areas anyway regardless if you PUG or H/H.

Once again...I love PUGs...you've just got to take the bitter with the sweet. Given the option...I will wait for a PUG over h/h even though I can h/h it np. I met most of my guildies/friendlist in PUGs and I consider PUGing a way to meet more ppl like them, who I enjoying playing with. I know I am one of the few, but I really like them for the most part and am very exicited about future PUGing possibilities that Embark might propagate(sp?).

If one magically finds themselves in a pug filled with stupid immature 12 year olds it's their own failure. People still need to discuss builds and tactics before starting any given zmission. At that point you either know (if) everyone on the team is a cretin, or if the party leader starts the mission w/o a word you can safely map back to the outpost (also without a word) and look for a team that's not doomed to failure.

Your information about the bickering, know-it-all 12 year olds seems to be based entirely on the pseudo high end VSF/SC type pugs, where people often do know what they're doing, and are so obsessed with completion time and efficiency that they'll tear apart any weaknesses they come across.

ZMission pugs aren't all sucky failures, the vast majority get stuff done, just not in the optimal timeframe.

Meh. I only PuG occasionally when I forget how bad they are. Immature 12 year olds is a bit of a stereotype, but I generally find most people are not inclined to listen to advice or even bothering to talk. Even if I bother trying to explain why the SoS Rit should have splinter they usually just stop responding so they don't have to change their 1-2-3-4-5 build. During my usual playtimes, there usually aren't enough people to simply ditch a group of bad players and find others.

PS: I never said there were no good players in PuGs. There are just very few of them. I imagine they've figured out H/H are better than 99% of other people.