Ugh...People...

Is it too much to ask that I find a group for FoW that can make it PAST the first quest?

Three seperate groups last night. Three seperate tries. Two of them were 'experienced' (or so they claimed) yet they die at the base of the tower where you first encounter Abyssals and Rangers. Both groups at this exact spot. I play a healing monk, so I suppose it could partially be on my shoulders, but they certainly weren't acting as 'experienced' as they said they were. An elementalist saying he'll 'pull' and then going to cast Meteor Shower on the closest Abyssal is NOT pulling, in my experience. Ugh.

I join a third group. I ask if these people are TRULY experienced, and the consensus is no, no they are not. In fact, for several of them, it was their first time ever going. "Ok," I think to myself. "Maybe I can get them to listen to me and follow my directions then."

Hahaha. Folly.

We go in. "Be careful, everyone. Please don't move or aggro anything or take the quest until I give a basic idea of what we're doing and a good way to go about it."

"who r u to give orders and tell us what to do"

"ur just a monk u cant lead"

"we'll play how we want"

"ooooh this place is dark and scary"

"CHARGE"

Immediately to the right, two people go, and then the more impressionable people follow--aggroing ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING OVER THERE.

"heal plz"

"res plz"

"wtf y wont u res me dumbass monk"

I gave up after that and logged out for the night.

Are good players impossible to find? I just want to get past the first quest for a change.

no, just in the harder places of the game you find the most idiots, trust me my main is a monk, so i know your pain on fissure pugs....

I play a Me/E and have yet to venture into FoW or UW.

Any advice on finding a group and not losing my gold?

Oh God yeah :/

I could never understand the complaining of monks...

...until I made one. I encountered every warrior that had been so thoroughly loathed. At the very least, having to heal constantly you learn how to manage your energy, and when to heal.

Seems you'll rarely find those groups that have those experienced players in them, as the 'experienced' tag gets tossed around as a way to get into groups. If you join the group, and they ask for your skillbar, they'll probably know what they're doing. I think it also comes down to are you willing to spend an hour finding that good group or would you rather just play. I'd advise to make small chat after getting into a group to gauge their behaviours and whether or not you'll be able to get along let alone actually succeed.

Mordakai, if you can find a group that will take a mesmer in... they're probably a good group.

I love having either interrupt mesmers or degen mesmers in FoW. amazing how people undervalue them until they literally stop everything from killing u and allowing your monks to heal everyone else more effectively. a good wells necro and an interrupt ranger are bonuses too.

Our normal fow run build is

2 w/? (one as book holder/stance tank, one as dmg dealer)
1 Wells necro (those rock in fow)
1 shutdown mes
1 interrupt ranger
1 good dmg ele (either air or fire)
1 prot monk
1 healer (usually me )

with that combo, we can clear FoW easily and usually never have any problems as we usually do one fow run a night for easy cash/exp. i can count the number of times on one hand that we didnt clear FoW....

LOL!

I'll try this weekend, and let you know how it goes...

you can find idiots everywhere.

I was helping a friend in the jungle missions, we were doing the cetaur bonus. I told everyone to stop, drew lines on the map, I did everything but reach throught the screen to choke them. They killed the centaurs, so I said "bonus is over lets go".

Then some one messaged "So what was the bonus?"

"The bonus was to listen to the centaurs and not kill them"

Next bonus, awaking the druids. I told them 5 times in various way not to kill the forrest guardains. We triggered the bonus we are getting the last seed and pop-up "Bonus has failed: You have killed the forrest guards".

This one happened to my brother. He is doing the Nolani Academy. He found a fairly safe path, they gave the book to their warrior (who btw did not have sprint), threw echantment and protections on him. The warrior took the book ran past the ghost down the flight of stairs, to the pedastal, past the pedastal, up the stairs into an awating mob of ghost and got them all killed.

I have decided that the game is being taken over by morons or people are sabatoging the game.

sigh....unfortunately below is true for most people's UW/FoW experiences:

I've been in FEW *good* groups.
I've been in SOME *mediocre* groups.
I've been in MANY *baaaad* groups.

My advice? Try profiling them beforehand. I dont mind the *inexperienced* player much (as long as theyre willing to listen...) Signs to watch out for:

Impatient ppl.
Wammos yelling "go go go"
Monks who wont respond to a query as to if they are currently using an invincimonk build.
No team communication
No designated caller.

Anyway, sorry to hear of your folly. I myself have had bad experiences down there, but finally found an awesome group and group build. Don't worry, your time will come

That's all happened to me as well...

I love it when people ignore the lines you draw!

(in response to Markaedw)

These people get kicked immediately in our groups. Ive been ruined a couple times by warriors or anyone else screaming go, go, go and those damned smtie monks going "yeah im a prot" although one of the best fow runs i had was when one of them went and got killed and dropped. her ele friend went with her and i was only monk for 6 people. i got my armor that night

Vent or TS makes FoW/UW/Sorrows runs so much easier in pve that and you dont have to type everything and try to play also

I have to actually say that I think the quality of the PUGs I have been getting is going up...

With my last character:
I made it through Thunderhead with a PUG 1st try.
I made it through Perdition 1st try no problems
I made itthrough Hell's Precipice in 2 tries (1st try I attribute only to a bad pull ). Second time we made it through despite the fact that we had one person ERR7 out, leaving us not only 1 short, but it was one of our monks.

I'd say the best bet is to do FoW and UW with your guild or a group of known friends. PuG'ing is just suicide.

I would, if my guild would actually log on once in a while.

I know the feeling.... Dread Pirates, where are you!!!

I certainly hope that you didn't join one of those guilds that are advertised in Ascalon. Word is that they lack organization and rarely help their members.

Most of my guild left guildwars to go play Eve online. luckly they still use the same vent server so all i gotta do is say hey, fow run and they usualyl come. sucks not really being able to tomb and 90% ofthe time im the only one online......

No, no. Our guild came from a forum elsewhere. Though they've simply gotten bored with the game, at least until Chapter 2 comes out, so more often than not I'm the only one online.

o yes, its funny

if u're monk and want to find a more ao less decent group for FOW or UW u have to start asking questions - what skills 2nd monk's bringing this time, mb she/he wants u to bring sertain skill - then ask who's calling, who's designated book runner, if group wants to go to forge or whatever (u prolly want to tweak ur build in case of The Hunt and wailing lord quests).

if they start to yell at u - leave, its perfectly ok, u'll find better group.

as for UW group - u HAVE TO discuss ur skills with 2 other monks so u'll know whos bonder, who's healer, who's newb and if u got stupid ignorant nebs in ur team - its just a game, relax and have fun watching their attempts to do smth
i really enjoyed 1 UW pug this week - we have monk who wanted spider. o well it happens, we got 1 nice bonder 1 healer (myself) couple tanks (1st time in UW), mesmer - 1st time in UW again and of cos bring wrong skills but did ok, and the rest were eles i believe. we're going in mo/ra starts attacking with barrage, his hp is like 300-smth, and he prefers to aggro and stay near tanks he's whining all the time 'wheres my perfect spider' despite the fact that all group told him to shut up and try do quests, also he's offending ppl in team cos they're stupid but funniest thing i saw this run was his healing attempts - u cant believe but he had comfort animal for it..... we made it to 1st monument of cos and 1 of newbs got all 3 quests but i had fun

"JOIN DA FAT BURGER RAIDERS, 100+ ACTIVE MEMBERS, GUILD HALL, CAPE + LOTS OF FRIENDLY MEMBORZ"

*someone joins guild and they have around 10 people as members, (Last logged in: 23 days ago), and to find out they have no cape, let alone a hall*...