[MERGED] How to: Make a good PUG or Find a Good Group

So you decided to make a PUG, a team of random people never seen each other before, also known as difuculty level "hard".
However if you are ready to face a challenge you will be surprised by what you get and learn by good random pugs!

Here are some simple suggestions to get a new GW experience and to learn more about the game posibilities:

-> This way the challenge is to make the pug, fighting in it becomes a walk in the park 3 of 5 times.

Good pugs = Guild groups
Seen good pugs better than guild teams and "good pugs" worse than guild groups. THE argument for good pugs is to be open for new stuff, new combinations, a random strategy. THE argument for guild groups is to optimize the one strategy you play.

Patience and Freedom
Good groups need patience and time, this includes ~5-30 minutes to find a group and ~1-4 Hours of playing time in the group.
Everyone is free to leave anytime but you seriously have to kick impatient people.
The group leader has the freedom to kick anyone for any reason, or no reason at all.
If kicking someone it heps to say in team chat why you kicked who.
Everyone should have the freedom to chose their own favourite skills attributes and equipment!
suggestions > orders!

NO EXPERIENCED ALLCAPS SPAMERS!!!!!
A GOOD GROUP NEVER EVER INVITES PEOPLE THAT THINK THEY HAVE TO SPAM ANYTHING IN ALLCAPS: ITS JUST STUPID!
ALSO NEVER INVITE PEOPLE THAT CALL THEMSELF EXPERIENCED; OR THEIR GROUP AN EXPERIENCED GROUP, THEY LIE. EXPERIENCE IS JUST RELATIVE.

Rank Armor Prestige
Meaningless! 'nuff sayd!
Actually high ranked/armored players just kill ANY innovation in the game and newbies (also relative) surprise me all the time in a positive way!
Newbies pay your server, include them and be nice to them!

Make Mixed ballanced groups!
It just has ben proven 10:1 games that a mixed ballanced group is just better than a one sided group.
ONE player of a mixed group can destroy the basis of any one sided group.
Mixed group:
1. Every primary class is at least once in a group, using more than 1 attribute skill in its primary attribute.
2. No Primary Class is more than twice in a group, this includes ALL classes. 3 monks CAN make sense in case 2 might drop during the game AND if you have sacrificing necros or Frenzy Warriors, otherwise more than 2 monks are just worse than 2 monks.
4. No same attributes of 2 players should be above 9. This just means for 2 warriors, give both different weapon types and make one focused in tactics and one focused in strength. For 2 players of the same class, make them as different as possible.
5. Secondary classes compensate the "lack" of primary classes to make the group as mixed as possible.
You dont have to go trough all this. 1-3 are enough most times.

Team size is 8 no hencheman
Its not smart to go anywere with less than 8, sooner or later someone leaves, no big deal but its just plain stupid to go out in small groups unless you dont want to play for a long time anyways. All players support each other, that makes 8 player more than twice as strong, fast and effective as 4 players. Larger groups can stay more "mixed" for a longer time, too. Jou can just continue with less than 8 players if one leaves.
Hencheman AI is great, but they are always the same and always act the same, that makes them boring.

Advertising and Zoning
Say were you want to go, what you have and what you want:
"Final assault team Mo Me N W looking for R(wilderness) E(air) Mo(prot) *** "
Its not much to type and works perfectly!
Tell the team when you want to zone, zoning without warrning has 2 solutions:
- kick some of the lowest players.
- tell everyone to met in another district, the ones that wont follow are free not to do so.

No Paladins!
I hate paladins so much, they screw up good pugs all the time, just exclude them. Hovewer too often you have to pick one because nothing else is awailable and a ballanced group needs a primary warrior. If so RATE the paladin on this scale, its your coice how low you want to sink:
0. does it know his own name? (once i sunk this deep advertising "looking for a warrior that knows his name" to get a response)
1. does it reply to anything i ask him directly?
2. does it use mending?
3. does it act arrogant or ignorant or impatient?
4. does it use a fiery dragon Sword?
5. does it give a shit about the rest of his team?

merging groups and flexible targets
Players free for anything i like the most, however it becomes tricky when just a few team members set a target and if you merge groups.
Always keep the target up to date in the team chat to avoid confusion.
Dont merge with groups for only one player and kick half of the players that just joined, its not nice.

no voice cominucation needed
Vocie com is for guild groups, but in pugs barely anyone has anything to say anyways. The above rules make voice comunication in pugs unnecessary.

Lowered expectations
When searching anything special start with higher expectations and lower them if you find noone.

add your own...

This is for PvE or PvP? Oo

If it's PvP it sounds like a guide for someone in American district 1
If it's for Pve it looks like a great guide!

both, you got it

/sigh
what does everyone have against Paladins?

how would you rate milly on the Paladin crappyness scale?
uses a gladius and stone summit shield.
uses knights armor.
has not yet called anyone a damn n00b.
will always ask which res you would prefer i bring. and if you want a tank or a dogged caster chaser.
i use mending sometimes but turn it off if there is a mesmer in the enemy group.

as my other chars i have had maybe a 50:50 arses to good guys ratio for W/Mos

personally i don't particularly like Mo/Ws in my groups (especially when i'm my healer). from the majority of my experience they are soloers who have little to no idea how to heal (and in the worst cases still have 55 hp).
they also have the worst attitude problems (on avg) compared to other classes.

Some of your points are very valid, others amused me a bit:

Some of the most experienced and best tank players in our guild are W/Mo's using a Firey Dragon Sword (yes, they come in non blank variants, too).

Pretty much _every_ member of our guild has 15k armor because we play the game often enough to have shitloads of money we don't know what to do with other then buying overpriced armor.

In your definition, we must be total n00bs, then.

Couldn't agree more about the people talking in all caps, though. I'd shoot myselves in the head before ever inviting one of those.

best thread in the forum

first time i see someone talking about the difilcuty level being direcly connected to making random partys , that means , the social part of the game , is a big key to the game it selfe ...

/clap

Very good post, but not the palidin bit.

Were not all rubbish.

Grunt

On a serios note, what annoyes peeps about palidins is there insistance on rushing and agroing, which i never aim to do.

And ive seen plenty eles / necros / ect ect rush and agro and get the whole team killed.

I never join groups that tell me how to have my attributes or skills.
I know what i have to do in my role with any character i play and the people who oppose my skill as a player are just a phallus.

Infact, i have just got back from saving my teams backsides in the high priest alkar mission.
The leader insisted that i don't put any points into healing with my R/Mo. I went against him and i took breeze/heal party and told him i was doing so. It saved the day on numerous occasions.
Despite 1 person getting err=7 during a lag spike and 2 leavers, we finished the mission thanks to traps and heal party. I even ressed the entire team, deviating slightly from defending the priest.
The warrior on the team (usually branded stupid) recognised my skill amongst my vanity and thanked me for my generous contribution.

Sorry for seemingly going OT but my point is, i think a good PUG is composed of players who are skilled in WHAT THEY DO but also understanding the skills and capabilities of their teammates.
Knowing what makes a good PUG comes before actually making a good PUG.

Nice topic.

the paladin remark does not only apply to paladin, but to all players.
here are also some other reads on PUG Managing:
- 101 PUG management ~ IxChel
- PUG Management ~ by me

Ollj although I feel that this is a very well thought out post with insightful information, I also think that you can't always allow a broad blanket to cover everything.
That being said I feel that group size and diversification should be designed specifically to meet the needs of what you are doing (i.e. mission, quest, farming), and where you are doing such.

Now, I am no master or guru nor do I claim to be this is just my opinion and style of picking up pugs up until this point.

Some things I try to follow when I need to fill a couple remaining slots in my guild group or form a PUG:

1) Talk to everyone before going in. It takes time but ensures they can read - which will prove crucial later.

2) If you ask someone a question, and they don't reply after 3rd time, kick.
If I ask in team chat: "can one of the eles please bring Ward against melee?", and one ignores me after 3rd question, and the other asks: where can I get such skill?, kick (sounds mean but - how competent are those players if they don't even know where to get one of the most popular skills for their profession?).

3) Wamos .... uuuuuuhhh, wamos ... be very careful.
- Do not get more than 2 random warriors - more will mean at least one of them will turn out to be an idiot (statistically impossible to get 3 good ones in row).
- A little interview can help to weed out the rare good warriors: ask what stances they are bringing (if you need them to tank), ask if they have a bow for pulling, check if the way they write seems coherent & shows they have read the questions other people asked.
- Fiery dragon sword USUALLY shows it's a newbie that still finds them cool, but not always. I have been in PUG with a good wamo that used dragon sword.

4) Ask your monks to coordinate their skillbars - you won't need 3 mend ailments or 3 hex removals, and you also don't need 3 pure healers - your party will need some protection spells as well.

5) In PvE: ask everyone if they have a res, and if that res is: a) res signet or b) rebirth if they are a Mo/ or /Mo (see discussion on that in many other threads).
In Tombs PvP: ask everyone (except monks) if they have a res signet.
Wait for everyone to CONFIRM they have it. 2 days ago my otherwise perfect PUG failed Hell's just because we hadn't reasked the necro if he had a res ...

6) Be flexible about classes - you most definitely DON'T have to have "2 warriors and 2 eles" in your party.
It is more important to get reasonable people who know how to play their class - damage can be done in many ways.
That, and the most fun groups usually are the most mixed combinations .
Make sure someone has some kind of interrupt though.

7) If you don't have a real monk, take henchies instead of sitting in mission area for 30 minutes spamming "GLF MONK". They do their job just fine when utilized by intelligent players.

8) If you don't have real monks, ask EVERYONE to bring a self-heal - you know you can't rely on hench AI 100%, especially since they have no energy management whatsoever and run out of it fast - that will be emergency backup. Every class has some self-heal skills!

9) If there is an NPC to keep alive in the mission, consider taking some heal-other skills like Healing Spring or Well of Blood. I have done Thunderhead with no real monks, group was keeping the suicidal king alive with these 2 skills.

your "rank" comment is completely untrue. many players perpetuate this ludicrous myth, that rank means nothing. that is completely wrong. the simple fact is that a high ranked player will be a great player, period. many people "hate on" ranked players simply out of jealously of their skill and ability to prove their skill for all to see via emotes. so everyone needs to stop hating on ranked players. if someone is an unranked PVE only player, then that person should be thanking his lucky stars if a high ranked player ever joins his party. because the high ranked player is a blessing to him and his whole party. and it is an honor and privelege for the unranked players to have the high ranked players in their party.

on to the "paladins" comment: there are many bad paladin players. by the same token, there are many bad players of each and every class. especially monks. once i adopted a process of questioning PVE monks who try to enter my party, i was shocked to discover that most of their skills and attributes are all whacked-out to the point where their healing is very weak and pathetic. yet for some odd reason, it seems that most people neglect to question monks and just "assume" that any monk knows what he's doing. hence, i'm here to say: everyone needs to stop over-hating on W/Mo's and start questioning monks from now on. you will be shocked at many of the answers that your monk allies-to-be give you.

as for your "mending" comment: nothing is wrong with using mending on a W/Mo in PVE, it's a fine skill.

Pretty good except for the generalizations. I have an experienced W/N that I've gotten compliments for in a number of groups. She hasnt yet been a W/Mo. Dare I even switch? lol. Not from the sounds of it here.

Players who are smart far outweigh any of the class/profession presumptions. I think if you chat a bit with who you recruit, before you enter the mission or activity, you are well served. Many W/Mo's are very good W/, and many are not. Same is true for any class. I just hate to see such a wide population not even get to the invite/discussion part of team selection due to reputation.

That said, I was watching a line of 9 warriors in the Grotto last night try to dance in sync. Maybe generalizations ARE good. ^_~

I have to agree with this comment. While, of course, one can be a brilliant PvE player without ever doing any tombs PvP (some people just dont like PvP, nothing wrong with that), someone who is at least rank 3 is OBVIOUSLY a very experienced player.

What is harder: to combat silly monster AI that always acts the same way, with an agro you can easily "get" on yourself, or "drop" from yourself? Or a team of 8 cunning real people that watch your every move and adapt THEIR moves to what you are doing? I feel like wasting forum space just explaining something so obvious ...

The only thing you need to watch out for: ask the ranked monk if he took his rebirth I have to admit that after a couple weeks continuous tombsing (where monks most of the time don't carry a res) I had forgotten myself to take rebirth to a PvE mission .

Not if he acts like God's gift to my party.

Haha ... I have asked some random pickup monks what do they use for energy management ... many have no clue what I'm talking about . No wonder, as soon as battle starts, they start pinging no energy . While I do believe most horror stories about Leeroy warriors have been created from real facts, I also think that some of them have been told by monks that couldn't heal them because they had not learned how to manage their energy (and yet thought they knew how to play a monk).

Rank doesn't mean nothing, it just means very little. It is a measurement of experience and time playing the game. You might as well say you can tell how good someone is by using the /age command, or even their real life age. It's just not a reliable indicator of skill or character.

Not quite automatically.
A ranked player will be guaranteed to be skilled in playing GW, nothing more, nothing less. You can safely expect that they won't bring in crap builds. Which is a good thing.

But:

Rank does NOT guarantee that the player will be a nice person. A rank 6 player can still be the biggest jerk in the world (and some of them ARE). It does NOT guarantee that the player will actually care for the party. A ranked player is NOT automatically a blessing for the party. But they COULD be.

May i kiss your feet oh great one.

Definitely not ... but then, often it's some of the newbies that start lecturing the experienced player because he's doing something that they simply don't understand maybe.

For example, my monk has been bashed on for wielding a fire wand. Eh? Now, what exactly is wrong with a monk wielding a +5 energy wand from Nolani collector? Not like she's supposed to kill things with her stick (and I have another wand to switch to in case I do).
Or someone started lecturing me how bad it is to take lifebonds to Furnace, BECAUSE OF RUST. Right ...
I tried doing Droknar's titan quest a few days ago - the warrior was always at the back of the party, and the eles rushing forward and getting all agro (and often dying, of course). When me and my guildie tried to get things sorted out, we were called noobs. Hmm - I don't usually leave parties, but that time I did, got another group, completed the quest, completed the next one - and an hour later got a message from someone: "you n000b we completed the quest you looser!!!!1111". I completed 2 meanwhile, with a group where I had FUN because people didn't behave like headless chicken.

I don't mind if someone is a little arrogant because they are GOOD. I do mind though if people have no clue, yet are so full of themselves they ignore what other party members are saying.

I'd rather gore his engine till it turns red!

After Spirit Spam and IWAY there sure is a meaning behind rank now... yeah.. sure. Those both basically were NO brainers and most of the "I'm ranked uberleet!!!!111!!" people derive from these two builds. So basically i avoid taking those "ranked" players which are bragging around with it, because they tend to think they are Mister Knowitall.

When in fact... they are not. And this is NOT rank hate out of jealousy... this is a simple fact that many got their rank 3 due to spiritspam and IWAY. So all a high rank shows is that someone knows how to copy someone elses build. Those are most likely the persons that also state "kick the mesmer omgZ0R" just because they neved hat to use one in their spiritspam days.

I'd go as far as to say that 95% of all ranked players that are bragging around are mere copycats. And this is even lower than a Mending Wa/Mo.

why the mending hate? mending is great, you just need to know how to manage it.

the rank 3 people. well if i'm going to FoW i does the rank mean anything at all? just because they are winners in PvP doesn't mean that they can do crap all in PvE.
PvP tactics are very very different from PvE tactics. good luck getting IWAY through FoW or UW. rank is great when making a PvP team but pointless in a PvE situation.

yes many of us monks have a serious attitude problem. i don't like it because people attack you simply so that you don't attack them.

Just out of curiosity, what exactly is wrong with W/Mo's using Mending? It's a profession skill which has its uses.

Yes, it can be stripped, yes you can run into Shatter Enchantment, big deal, anything in this game can be countered, I consider it self healing which all players should do instead of just relying on the monks because when the monks die or have to run for their life they wont be able to heal the others. At that point a bit of self healing comes in very handy.

This whole thread is full of inane generalisations which doesnt do anyone any favors, really, all I can say is that balanced parties are a good thing and having 8 intelligent players who understand the game in a PuG is an ideal situation which alas happens too rarely.
If you get a party like that it really doesnt matter that much what they bring and what their chosen profession is.

PS: I have rank 0 (dont do PvP) and I've been in parties with ppl with rank 3 who were crap, rank doesnt say anything to me nor is it a reason for me to invite someone into my party, I also dont consider it a negative point, it has no bearing on PvE imho.

First of all I also would say that its not good to generalize a class.
Though I think that comes mostly due to two facts:

1) The most warrior players think they are gods and rush into a battle getting themselves killed (no matter pve or pvp) and blaming their monks or other party members of "not doing their jobs".

2) Due to the fact that the most warriors in GW are W/M

As about your "Rank" comment I must greatly dissagree because they can be blessing but aswell a bad curse!

A Rank says nothing since anyone could just gain Ranks at the tombs through random grouping and that doesn't not speaks for the skill of the player itself due to the fact that many can be lucky enough to be together with good groups and get themselves ranked doing the least needed in a group instead of playing hard and good.

I had a few ranks myself through the betas and I'm in GW since the first WPE in 2004 and still doen't have more than maybe 1 - 2 Ranks since retail because I don't play tombs and GvG much (GvG mostly Unrated with our allies to train our new players a bit or to give them a taste of gvg).

So only because I or someone else has no ranks or only less then others, that doesn't mean that the higher ranked players are better than us or exactly know what they are doing while we don't have a clue or are just bad or a curse.

So in my Eyes these Rank Spammers should come down from their Throwns and try to play with all the other "Earthlinks" in a normal and respectfull way instead of playing Gods and think they are a bless to everyone around.

This has nothing to do with jealousy cause actually I don't care about ranks at all.

What I care is respectfull, nice and helpfull teammates by my side no matter in PvE or PvP cause these people are the true blessing for me.

Rank or no Rank everyone can learn no matter how new or old someone is in the game cause no matter in a game or in real life the learning process "never ends" due to the fact that there is always more knowledge around to achieve and you can do that better with people that are willing to listen and help instead of stepping aside as if you were worthless as a person and/or player.

Just my Two Cents.

there isn't much wrong with the skill in PvE. It is a great skill for runners that provide running services. To some degree, I guess a war could use it in PvE, altough he doesn't have much trust in it's monk then. If he want's to play tank, he is maybe better of with evasive stances.
The heals of mending will only be nice over prolonged time. If you get hit hard, Mending will not save you.

In PvP, a warrior isn't exactly a primary target. So having Mending isn't really going to help, and will drain his energyregen. When a full party is hitting at the warrior in the end, then it is allready to late. Playing 'tank' in pvp does not work well .
Also the warriors that tend to use mending (paladins) in pvp are really irritating when they start to run away, when clearly the game is allready over. He just will try to bore you to death (if you didn't have a snare packed). That behavior didn't make the mending warrior popular either.

random grouping will not get you rank. it will take forever to get rank through random grouping. maybe 3 fame per day, or something like that.

and it's true that a few players might be able to leech fame to some extent, but for the most part that is very hard to do since once the good players realize who the weakest links are, they will not party with them any longer. thus cursing the weak player to further random grouping @ 3 fame per day

@the comment: "tactics are different for PVE and PVP therefore rank is irrelevant to PVE". that does not matter because a ranked player got that way by understanding the need for different tactics and adapting to the situation at hand. being able to do well in PVE would be a cakewalk for them simply because they are already smart enough to understand that concept and skilled enough to use it to play well.

Nothing aside from monk heals will reverse spike damage, small or large, thats obvious, it does allow warriors to get a slight edge and counter conditions to an extent, as a warrior I consider that a good tradeoff.
Stances dont help you against conditions and/or hexes. I am all for stances and use them regularly myself as well, Mending isnt a staple for me but definitely one of the skils I regularly use.
As a monk I appreciate the bit of self healing it does and the counter to the conditions it provides, it means I can concentrate on healing others and take the conditions off when the opportunity arises.

Ah, but this topic was about PvE and PuG's really, I see where you are coming from with regards to PvP and I would agree that Mending in that kind of arena is pointless and self serving.

Double post:

So why are the ranked players quite often such lousy teammates then which show very little insight and intelligence when playing PvE?

Is that because all that experience is based on a limited arena setting with a set amount of opponents and an 8 man team where everyone has a defined role and build which generally doesnt work in PvE not to mention the tendency to copy other teams innovative builds or simply spamming spirits or IWAY?

Rank proves nothing to me except that the person has spent a considerable amount of time playing PvP in GuildWars. For the rest I'll make my mind up during the actual mission.

Ok, for tombs, im sorry, but the biggest barrier to getting into competent teams is rank and guild contacts.

if you dont know anyone who knows someone - its gonna be tricky to get into anything but FOTM builds.

your best bet is to find a nice guild group that is short 1 or 2 players and ensure you can build exactly what they want, further, you MUST have ventrilo and teamspeak installed and working (with a mic). if you dont, someone else will and you dont get a spot.

finding such groups takes patience and a willingness to talk crap in the main channel to maybe win a few friends. dont try too hard, just be prepared to be ordered around a bit, if youre rank 3 - say youre rank 5, if youre rank 6 - say youre rank 8. its a little lie that might help yah get in, and if you follow orders you should do ok anyway.

for PvE, if youre a monk or warrior or ele, then chances are you are already in a group.

for necros - i personally want a necro with rend, well suffering, shadow of fear, spiteful spirit, mark of pain, and maybe some secondary skills in monk or mesmer (bring aegis and mend ailment, or some illusions skills like sympathetic visage, arcane conundrum, or possible energy draining skills to help maintain your curses).

for the love of god, dont bring life siphon, infact just ignore blood plz, yes its nice to have well of blood, but its so much quicker with some good damage output and enchantment stripping.


for mesmers - no degen, omg if i see conjure phantasm anywhere after the charr, hell, after pre-sear - then i will just restart i think. yes its nice vs 100hp enemies, but seriously its a piece of crap vs. most ring of fire enemies, and only makes for a good cover hex (of which phantom pain i think is superior). infact just ignore illusion (yes, not even frag mez plz), i want you to bring domination and inspiration, youll be shutting down casters (of which there is a bunch in ring of fire and further), shame, guilt, leak, spike whatever you can handle, diversion is nice too, just be able to shutdown atleast 2 casters and ill be happy.


for rangers - yes damage is nice, but honestly id love it if you could bring interrupts, dont bring troll unguent, just bring a bunch of interrupts and max out your marksmanship to maintain moderate damage. youll be doing a nice job shutting down a caster while you kill it, its so damn useful if you can interrupt.


for eles - plz try maelstrom or meteor shower, its very nice and makes monks happy. ER smiters can be useful too. but plz dont pick spells that require you to be close to the enemy, just stay back and nuke from safety - YOU ARE NOT A TANK.

for wars - damage plz, 9 out of 10 cases a healing seed will keep you alive, whereas your healing breeze will do crap all. just max out your damage as much as possible, hammer is nice, axe is nice, sword sux - no fiery dragon swords, use physical damage plz.

and there you go:

2 monks (heal and hybrid)
1 war
1 necro (with a little prot)
1 mes
1 rgr
2 eles (fire and water)

makes for an easy run through any pve map id say.

and yes my post sounds dogmatic and small minded, but with all the peeps crying about not getting invited, maybe some of them could get together and make something like this so they can get through pve missions easier.

On top of that, rank doesn't justify how good you are. If you are experienced enough to get to rank 1, then you are experienced enough to get to rank 9 or higher. Hell, someone could PvP all day and only win the first match in the Undworld. A couple of thousand wins and they'll be rank 9 in no time.

the thing is, most IWAY parties are easy-as-pie for any semi-decent party to counter. therefore i highly doubt that IWAY builds are as successful at farming fame as they are perceived to be by the playerbase at large. just copying a build does not bring success. there is more necessary to win in Tombs than just having the stock skills on the skillbar. which again just goes to show that time alone does not earn rank. time plus skill is what earns rank.

as for you "making up your mind during a mission": that's fine if that's what you wanna do. but for some of us we'd rather have a guaranteed good player in our party slot rather than having to waste an hour or two "trying out" somebody who may be great or may be horrible. the rank system saves time by taking the guesswork out of this equation.

as for ranked players being lousy in PVE, i've never seen that happen. if it does indeed happen, then no doubt it is a very rare anomaly

yeah agreed, rank != skill.

its more like rank == faction == skills unlocked.

if i have to decide between 2 players for a particular position, its who has the right skills that counts, attitude and willingness to cooperate is important too.

but basically its a thing where asking for 6+ rank filters out a lot of people who might be really nice and helpful, skilled too, but dont have the skills unlocked that i need for a build.

on the other hand, a lot of high ranks are quite arrogant and dont care to try any ideas outside their small box shaped head, or are so full of themselves they play individualistically and dont help the team much. it's hard to combat this, but after a week of trying, you can usually build up a quality friends list that you can call upon for reliable players.

the first five minutes of battle determines your success... I was helping guild mates last night with Ice Caves of Sorrow... and I'm a warrior. My job is to go into the group, and hold them there while casters nuke them from afar and my monk keeps me alive. Yes I know my name and I use Mending... oh and I do have a firey dragon sword like Rurik. There was 5 of us guildies joined by 3 people we didn't know... Before we even started, I knew we were doomed and told the guild so in guild chat. Sure enough... "Don't attack the Mursaat" turned into a Mursaat slaughter of a couple of them while the rest of us stood out of range... confused on what part of "Don't attack the mursaat." was not understood. We were then called "noobs" for not helping them "die" I guess. So we used res and proceeded... only to be completely destroyed at the first catipult ship. So back to outpost, we kicked them, grabbed hench and completed the mission with no deaths and no mursaat encounters.

My tip?

Want success? Take Hench/Guild members/Friends

Want a retarded fun time? Take PUG.

I’ve pretty much beat the game with random pug’s and done for pvp mainly 4x4 (but on occasion) since the game has come out.

Pvp – Agree
Pve - Partially disagree, if your guild is a “friend” guild where it’s a bunch of people who like to hang out that’s not focused on beat mission / quest as efficient or as soon as possible (not rush to ascension)

You have your time frame dead on from what I’ve experienced. Pretty much how I’ve observed them to work.

Disagree, I’ve meet some really good obnoxious players. It’s true that higher then normal players that talk like this will cause problems but I can usually deal with it as a member in the pug (this is not from the leader).

I’ve actually not seen this other then trying to do a pug in Tomb Kings.

It’s a good idea but beyond getting a mixed group based job only not going to the attribute level at all. We some time have 3-4 (out of 8) of the same job type. This would be good for PvP in regards attributes.

Disagree, prefer to have max human players and strive toward but I found that as long as not more then 25% of the group is henchmen, it goes very well. Most groups are always max human capacity.

I found and observed that asking anyone not ready to go and wait about 30-1min works best instead of everyone ready and “waiting” for everyone to indicate ready.

Disagree, I would never pitch a fit about quitting if some element in a pug was to my disliking (been in a group where the monk left due to there no pets policy…), Paladins when played not being as umm… redgore …. are the best tanks in the game. It’s true that there more then fair share of bad Paladins that give them a bad name and have the above traits so if you constantly party leader and have a constant stream of this I do understand how you feel but I’m up for giving people a chance. You did forget doesn’t let support staff recovery energy.

Especially agree against merge and kick but I rarely ever see this in Pve. As long as one, maybe two are calling targets I found it works very well.

Agree I’ve done very well in PvE without any voice chat and been in some great PvE parties that had next to no chat at all. I was even in a 4x4 pug pvp that did 8 consecutive wins with almost no chat.

Agree, start high then lower, we had a lvl 14 monk in a group we did for Galen in Sorrow's Furance and it was a blast, we died several times, did all the sub-sub quests from npc flamewhip and it did take longer. The dp were not to bad in truth and we had a blast.

(Edit) I think the biggest reason why I find pug's ok is I come From Final Fantasy XI... it's all pugs or party with linkshells, no in between and use to this.

Hm, I am usually not one to make generalizations lightly, but I firmly believe that everyone talking in ALL CAPS LANGUAGE is a retarded twat. Every single one. No exceptions. Talking in all caps is retarded by itself - no further proof needed.

BRAVA!! Perfectly stated.

An experienced player *in Tombs*, sure. In PvE? There might be some correlation but it certainly isn't a guarantee. There are some very high ranked Tombs players who are simply godawful in PvE. The skillsets are rather different and don't translate well.

Peace,
-CxE

Most of that was good advice, although I don't think that alone will get you a great PUG. You can only get so much out of the playerbase, if there's nothing but loonies and rude kids around that's what you'll have to deal with.

Also the paly comment is just an absurd bit of classism. I actually find elementalist/monk are the latest dummy attractor (sorry to the great players of that class, just like I'm sorry to see warriors or rangers attacked when there are idiots that make our classes look bad) and I've seen an abundance of, yes, rushing elementalists lately! I've also met egocentric necromancers, rangers that don't wait for regen to pull, monks that don't have any idea how to make a great healing or prot build... and on and on. Any class can be bad, any set of skills poorly choosen or used bad, so it's a shame the OP breaks all his own rules about treating people with respect when mentioning w/mo's.

wow so many errors in here i do not know where to start so i will just say this.

what is your IGN so i can warn everyone against you?

you are an admitted liar for one, and secondly by the quality of this post you have no clue how to play

"0. does it know his own name? (once i sunk this deep advertising "looking for a warrior that knows his name" to get a response)
"

No one mentioned this yet, but... The hell is that about? I just don't get it.