Re-activating your WoW account, or interested in "Trying Before You Buy"?Does Guild Building Include PUGs?
Pick-up groups, aka "PUGs", are akin to a "pick-up" sports game in a field full of kids, where the event that eventually occurs wasn't planned in advance, but still the game goes on: Teams are formed from those currently around and the teams can play, within certain rule-sets, doing things that can't be accomplished alone.
In World of Warcraft, most PUGs are put together for the purpose of going through a 5-man dungeon instance, and because Pick-Up Groups generally consist of players who don't know each other, sometimes the antics in the group can be a little annoying.
After experiencing the chaos of PUG groups at low levels, some players find a guild and notice that guild runs tend to be a lot more consistent and a lot less annoying than PUGs, and the temptation to rely on the guild group as the only source of dungeon party access is very strong. After all, why deal with strangers when there's all these people right here, in my guild, who I could go in with?
But, I am noticing in my own playing, there are benefits to PUGs, and at some levels or during some occasions, PUGs are actually more consistent and reliable than guild groups. Especially if your guild is casual, non-raiding and players solo a lot, thus lacking dungeon knowledge and teamwork experience despite their wonderful guild presence.
So, while I ponder a more pithy entry about the Art of PUGging, I'd love some input from YOU!
Do you PUG?
Do you encourage your guildmates to PUG?
Do the influential people in your guild PUG and/or encourage you to PUG?
What solid skills of yours do you attribute to your experiences in PUGs?
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Tagged as: dungeon guide, dungeon playing guide, guildmaster guide, how to find a pug, LFG tool, LFM Tool, looking for group, pick up groups, PUG, pugging, pugging strategy, successful pugs, Tips and Tricks, warcraft pug, world of warcraft
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Fear the pug.. run from the pug.
Nah its good for getting some people to fill in holes. For lower level instances thats all I do. My guild is mostly 70's.. I mean I'm 65 and I am ALWAYS the lowest level person logged on. I know they have alts but they must play them in times Im not around.
Upper level content (post outlands) I think guild groups are best. Well past ramparts.
I'll put a post up on my blog with more info
I PUGged when I was leveling my main and alt. It's a necessary evil but I haven't run a PUG in a long time b/c just about anything I want/need is in guild raids. There are people in my guild who think that being in a guild means you shouldn't have to PUG. Wrong. No matter where you are you have to PUG for what you want sometimes. It's ridiculous to ask guildmates to run rep runs of places they've run 50+ times already, even after being exalted. It's really tiring to see the same sights and kill the same bosses over and over again, especially when you outgear the instance - we're not here to hold your hand. I ran alot of PUGs, in addition to guild runs, to get rep on both my toons for certain rewards. I even tried to DPS a BM run on my Holy priest b/c I wanted to get to exalted with KoT for my bracers. I ran 10 PUGs a day for that rep and never complained once about my guildies not helping me b/c I understand they're either burnt out on the instance or just have other things to do. I've learned alot about my class in PUGs and I've noticed those guildies who have been spoonfed by lvl 70s helping them leveling up turn out to be mediocre raiders b/c once crunch time hits in a raid fight they don't know how to handle it b/c their XP was handed to them by higher lvl toons.
I usually get a group of my closest guild friends (friends that I have been with for years), and we usually gather a PUG or two. I will never PUG alone though... unless I need to!
I will check the guild first to see what they're doing, see if I can help, or see if there are people free to give me a hand with something. Most of the time I just make my presence known that I'm 'free' or up for XXX dungeon, and if there are no responses, I go /lfg... PUGing is just by nature in this game. Being able to do it well, means learning your class for Multiple situations to fit the need of the group then and there. Having a 2nd set of gear on you, or easily accessible in the bank in case you're asked to fit a roll in the group that you aren't 'spec'd for.
I think its funny when people ask me what 'spec' my priest is am after I come 3rd/4th in DPS (the tank didn't need THAT much healing until the bosses anyways) and I tell them Holy/Disc... their jaw drops... then I tell them I'm spec'd for DPS and that I have a 2nd set of +dmg spell gear to go with my +healing gear! :D I can get my +dmg to over 600 and my +healing to over 1000... depending on the gear. That way when we get 2 priests, I say "don't worry, I'll DPS" :P I parsed my DPS with a level 70 warlock and he did 55% of the dmg and I did 45%.... since I'm not shadow spec that was a pretty close comparison! :-D