My last PUGFollow

My general rule of thumb is "just say no to pugs." I have broken this rule from time to time, and about half of those times I have such a bad experience that I swear off pugs again for a while. This is my latest story.

My 72 feral/resto dual-spec druid was running around doing a cooking daily and kept hearing someone shout for a healer for regular UK. I've been in UK 3 times before, as exploratory episodes, but have witnessed the first boss fight (and not much beyond it). I have fairly lousy gear for a level 72, but since the person kept asking for a healer I figured I would offer up my services and see if they were interested.

I sent the person a whisper and told them I don't have much spell power (a little over 600 in tree form) but that I was resto specced and I would be willing to try to heal them. I also told them I don't know the instance very well. They were eager to run and so they accepted me into the group.

The group consisted of a 75 hunter, a 74 death knight (tank), a 71 death knight, a 72 death knight, and me (72 druid). I check the map and they are scattered to the four corners, so I begin running to the keep. The tank dies while roaming the wilds of Grizzly Hills and is gone afk for some 10 minutes. The hunter is bored and so begins dueling the lower level DK's and myself (in resto spec and gear). He is quite pleased with his successes, and lets us know it.

I am just about to drop the group because of the dead tank's absence when he finally returns and we summon him to the keep. More dueling ensues. /sigh

I have to ask the DK tank if he intends to tank in unholy presence or if he will switch to frost. He switches to frost. Yay! I buff us up and in we go.

After every pull, they check damage meters. I mean every...single...pull. Granted, the tank was taking a very long time between pulls despite me being full on mana. The others urge him to pull faster, and when he doesn't, the 72 death knight starts pulling (in blood presence).

Prior to us getting to the first boss I died twice. With all of the dps fighting for damage meter supremacy, aggro was flying all over the place. I should have let them die, but I wanted to try and keep us all going so I'd throw down healing and then get aggro and get killed. My bad, I know. When we got to the first boss, nobody seemed interested in breaking the ice blocks so lots of folks were taking heavy damage. I battle rezzed the tank once when he died (I swear he took a massive burst of damage, not sure where it came from), but two of the dps died in the battle. I barely managed to escape without dying. We beat the boss, and I rezzed the two fallen toons. Lucky for me, the boss dropped a nice caster item and I got the need roll.

After that, the group quickly broke up. I wonder if it wasn't in part because two of them died in the fight (okay three if you count the tank, but he was standing at the end of the fight). Not that I'm complaining. It was not going to be a successful group I don't think. I can't wait for our small guild to get 5 folks on at the same time and give it a shot. We have had some fun instance runs leading up to northrend.

So, now I've sworn off pugs for a while. What's your latest pug story?

I pug all the time. I figure I can stick with a small group of skilled people, or go out there and find more skilled people. Sure some are horrible, but I've met a lot of good folks too who I'd have never known if I stayed guild-exclusive.

I was thinking of this whole "to PuG or not to PuG" debate over the weekend.

Against my better judgment I hopped into a HoL PuG on Saturday night as healer.

I am not sure if subconciously I wanted to punish myself, but in the end (the point at which I threw up my hands and smashed my face on the keyboard) I had received a sizable repair bill and a fresh loathing for DKs (why are pressences so HARD to figure out?!).

TLDR: I ran with a PUG and all I got was this lame t-shirt repair bill.

Xenexia, I think that may have been what happened in this instance, too. I'm not entirely sure. When it hit home that it wasn't going to be a walk in the park to get through the instance, people bailed on the group.

I've had some fun pugs in TBC, but this was my first try at a pug in Wrath, and it was not a pleasant one. My preference is to run with guildmates, and since I have a bunch of questing ahead of me that normally keeps me busy if they're not around, so I rarely pug these days.

Who knows, maybe I'll give it a shot again soon. We'll see. /salute!

I would have been rolling on the floor in tears over this. I really need to play on your server. You have some of the best horror pug stories.

Honestly, Mazra, I don't know how the DK died in Grizzly. He was dead when I joined the group. I wondered how he died as well, since I took my DK through there and did not have any issues. Cest la vie.

When a pug goes well, it's greatness. Five random individuals coming together and working like a well-oiled machine is a lot of fun. People do their jobs not because they are told to, but because they know how to. One pug in Shadow Labs was like that, and it was a great run to be sure.

Bad pugs turn me into a cursing, sweating monster. I look back and laugh, but when in the middle of a bad pug run I'm ashamed to be me.

But I love to tell stories, so they are good in that department. /salute!

Most of the time when I PuG it's simply because guildies are busy, and that usually ends up with one or two members of the group being very well geared (especially in the last few days) and the rest medium to crap.

But I had an excellent experience yesterday. What started out as me healing a quick daily H run turned into almost 6 hours of chain H's on both my healer char's with the mains and alts of one of the best guilds horde-side on my server. 2 runs through most of the more commonly done H's and even a run through Occ and HoS.

6k shammy dps no gimmicks or AoE as I'm sitting there waiting for my first HoT to run out and the pull is already over.


And then an ego-trip, 2 of the people in the run are the class leaders for their guild (druid and pally) and both of them complimented me in /w separately when I was on the class that they lead.

No doubt not that big of an accolade, but everyone should take note: Thank your healers, it's really nice to get a compiment now and then.

Mazra's Guide to Bad Puggin':

Step 1: Open the Looking For Group tool and queue for a random instance. Click the Looking For More tab and browse through other LFG players until someone asks you to join a) the instance you queued up for, b) an instance not available to you, c) Gundrak.

Step 2: Accept all invites, unless the following is true: you are already in an instance group.

Step 3: Browse your group members.
- If there are more Death Knights present than the rest of the group members together (ie. three or more), stay in the group.
- If the healer is a Paladin in Outland gear, stay in the group.
- If the healer is a Resto Druid/Holy Priest, leave.

Step 4: Tell the group that you're close to the summoning stone and that you require the aid of one additional group member to summon the rest.
- If no one replies, stay in the group.
- If the group leader replies in any way, leave.
- If anyone else replies with anything relevant to your comment, leave.

Step 5: Do not remind anyone to repair or sell junk until after you've pulled the first group of mobs.

Step 6a: Ignore the whispers of guild invitations from the group leader.
Step 6b: Accept the invitation to the guild master's guild, but only if the name of the guild makes you cringe.

Step 7: Tell the Mage to stop auto-following and wait for him to post Recount data from another instance.

Step 8: Ask the Paladin, for the sixth time, to buff the party.

Step 9: Ask the Warlock to write in English. Ask him again. Tell him. Ignore him.

Step 10: Leave the group, but make sure you time it so you do it only just before your head explodes. Maximum profit.

Step 11 (optional): Add everyone to ignore, then realize your ignore list is full. Queue for a random instance and find the group leader of your previous PUG with the Looking For More option. Whisper him for an invite.

The worst part about AOE tanking is when you fail to keep aggro from that Bladestorm Warrior (no threat reduction, massive AOE burst) so he dies and then everyone blames you for not doing a proper job of tanking.

You try to explain to him that rushing into mobs and using an ability that generates upwards of 110% of my threat on every mob nearby is bad. You tell him to relax a little and maybe count to five before rushing in. He /lols at you, tells you to l2p, agrees to wait 5 seconds before rushing in (usually only because the healer sides with me), rushes in after 2 seconds, dies, tells you in not-so-nice words how incompetent he finds you, leaves the group and pulls his sub-par tag-along friend with him.

Story of my life, seriously.