Posts Tagged ‘pick up groups’

13
Jul

Why PUG?

   Posted by: WoWGrrl    in Adventures In Azeroth, Adventures In Outland, Adventures While Healing, Adventures While Raiding, Adventures in PUGs

Pick Up Groups are the name given to parties that form without a previous agreed-upon roster or schedule, in order to take on content that can’t be handled solo at that level.

I’ve written a lot about them here in my blog, because over the years of playing, I’ve come to recognize the high value of them for any player who likes to experience the depth of the game in all of its aspects, and the social value that PUGging has given me when it comes to holding my own with new friends I make while playing the game.

Why PUG?

Lots of answers spring to mind, but some of the main ones for me, are this:

Why I PUG:

  • I like the concentrated encounters that dungeon runs offer (versus questing) - less running around, more playing
  • I like the quietness of a small guild of introverts for my general hangout - that chat window isn’t big enough to have real conversations going on very often
  • My friends aren’t always available for what I want to do, or there aren’t enough of us
  • I like my toons and love to practice all of their skills. Playing with different classes in a familiar encounter adds spice
  • As I PUG, I meet other players who are solid in skill and attitude and we become friends, and I begin to meet their friends
  • As my experience in PUGs grow, I’m invited to other parties with people I know play well more - and good players tend to gather together.
  • As a writer, PUGs also inspire me in compiling educational information for those who, like me, have a competitive edge to do well in whatever they do, even if they don’t have raiding aspirations :)

Why I Want My Friends To PUG

  • So that when you decide to join in on a dungeon run I advertise on chat in the Outland (or at level 70), you’re not making all of the cardinal sins that PUG-experienced players learned while PUGging in Azeroth. I don’t want to have to say “dude, you stink”.
  • So you have a basic clue of what you need to do to handle heroics and I don’t have to ask you each time whether you’re heroics geared when you say you’d like to come along
  • I want friends who will invite me into their dungeon group, without any type of reliance on me to help fill out the rest of the group.
  • I want to share experiences with my friends, as it’s much more fun that way - as long as it’s not my friend who is committing cardinal dungeon party sins out of lack of experience (and thus looking like they’re way younger than they are)

Now, that having been said, let me say this as well:

My Hunter was my first one up, and she really didn’t do a LOT of PUGs. I did some, and killed a lot of people until I figured out how to control my pet and use it as a tank, and negotiate tight areas with difficulty getting Ranged to be able to sling arrows.

When I hit Outland the day of the expansion release, I didn’t PUG at ALL with that toon, just did quests until I hit 70. I still rarely PUG with her as my Mage came up and that’s where I got comfortable with PUGging and my role in it.

My second and subsequent toons have all PUGged a lot. In fact, my Healing Priest who just hit 69 in her second run of Shadow Labs, has been PUGging since level 38 almost exclusively for experience and leveling (52-58 I gave up, went Shadow and ground my way to Outland then went back holy and back into LFG). The toons lower than her are also on the same trek, with a few more traded run-throughs with friends added in there.

So, I understand getting familiar with the game, making a few friends and doing quests with another person or two, and only having larger parties on rare occasions to take down some group quest outside an instance… but once someone has any aspiration to get some gear from dungeons or experience the whole dungeon thing, I think PUGging is important and a respectful way to show your friends you want to do your part to be a solid contributor in the group.

So, maybe you don’t PUG with this main toon for a bit, maybe you PUG with a lowbie where others are just as inexperienced as you. The skills transfer to your higher level toon as many are basic dungeon etiquette and dungeon processes more than class skills.

And of course, if you’re on a 14.4k modem or simply don’t have the time to even consider dungeon instances, no need to PUG.

But please, when I ask if any DPS wants to join in on a run that’s forming in the Outland (Azeroth is way more forgiving and quite okay - it’s where everyone is still learning the ropes), don’t decide that now is the day you’re going to “try dungeons”. Jumping in to the deep end will be stressful for both of us ;)

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8
Jan

The Heroics Divide

   Posted by: WoWGrrl    in Adventures In Azeroth, Adventures In Outland, Adventures While Raiding, Adventures in PUGs

I’m only writing this entry so that I can will the Warcraft Server Gods to bring the realms up, so … hopefully it will be a short entry ;)

Heroics in World of Warcraft

Heroics dungeons were introduced with Burning Crusade as a way to keep the general populace entertained for longer before having to commit to a “raiding guild experience” that went beyond a PUG in the Looking For Group tool.

Heroics only exist in the Burning Crusade dungeons (but will also exist in the Wrath of the Lich King expansion) and are dungeons whose difficulty are significantly higher than the regular version of the same dungeons. That is, all the dungeons from Hellfire Ramparts clear up to Steamvaults, Arcatraz and the many others players can traverse through on their trek to 70… have a Heroic mode that can be run once a player is 70 and adequately geared.

The Purposes Of Heroic Dungeons

Heroic Dungeons serve many purposes on the game.

If you’re a casual player who has no aspiration to ever see the inside of a 10-man-raid during the same expansion it was released in, Heroics offer a challenging environment that requires the same level of commitment and scheduling as a regular 5-man PUG, and offers a continuation of gearing-up that doesn’t require commitment to other players on a continuing basis.

If you’re interested in getting into Raiding, Heroics is a training ground for the skills required to be a good raiding contributor to the 10 and 25-man raids. Plus, the gearing from Heroics Badge rewards and Heroics drops (including otherwise-expensive Gems) is on-par with what drops in the 10-man raid instances - thus, gearing up through Heroics makes a would-be raider even MORE viable on a raiding team.

The Heroics Inside Track

I’ve noticed in my own gearing-up and PUG Heroicking (and social wheel greasing) and reputation grinding that the better geared I have gotten, the more people whisper ME to get involved in things - even when I’m not in their guild, and, in fact, my guild is a “nobody” guild when it comes to Heroics and beyond.

I’ve now got Heroics-geared Tanks and Healers who ask ME to join their group to handle DPS and Crowd Control. Folks who rank decently on the WoWJutsu.com ranking site for our realm. And let me tell you… partial PUGs where you know the Tank and/or Healer are solid make Heroics SO MUCH MORE FUN!

Why Do People Skip Heroics?

I’ve noticed something very interesting now that I’ve moved into this “gearing/geared up for Heroics” phase of my World of Warcraft existence - while Heroics gear is on-par with Karazhan gear (I’m going to have to find some links to point to here, I’ll come back and edit this later), there are those would-be raiders who seem to want to “skip over” Heroics and jump right from “Quest-and-Dungeon-Blues 67+” into Karazhan in order to get their gear upgrades there.

I realize that PUG Heroics are a crapshoot in terms of being able to make it past the first boss with the continuing waves of barely-geared players dipping their toes into the Heroics water, but isn’t that why we build a Friends list?

Oh, and BTW, if you’re in a guild with a bunch of Friends, this question is much clearer to me. I guess I’m asking mainly about the people who apply as complete strangers to join a raiding guild without having an inside reference asking them to join.

Thoughts welcome!

Woot! Game’s up…

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26
Dec

Toon Updates: Healing Priest Hits 44

   Posted by: WoWGrrl    in Adventures In Azeroth, Adventures While Healing, Adventures in PUGs

Holy PUG Priest, Batman!

I’m quite enjoying healing in instances, overall. My Priest is now level 44.

I haven’t tried tanking, but after having two DPS characters hit level 70 and facing the repeat problem amongst my friends and in pick-up groups of finding a Healer or a Tank, I decided to put real efforts into bringing up a healer so I could trade favors with the few friends I DID have who played healing or tanking characters at max level.

I’ve been Holy pretty much all of this Priest’s existance, and really started to do PUGs a lot in my mid-30’s, doing a lot of RFD (razorfen downs) runs and then doing a few Uldaman runs before heading into Zul’Farrak and Maraudon. My gear doesn’t reflect the dungeons I’ve been in, but I’ve learned a lot about things that make a party successful or extremely difficult from the healer end of the spectrum - things I had never thought about before while playing other roles.

Finally Finding Friends

I finally found a “friend” on this toon - that is, a player who I partied with in a PUG at some point who advances at a level comparable enough to mine that, over a few weeks’ period of time, we’ve been able to join each other’s parties back and forth a couple of times, and are getting to know each other a little better. It sure is nice to join a group that is only a “partial” PUG because you already know that one of the people in the group is competent in their role.

Pushing Through the 40s

I’m finding the mid-40s to be slowish to advance through because there aren’t a lot of parties for Zul’Farrak nor Maraudon going at any time - advancing my Rogue through there was slow as well, but I found as soon as I hit 48 and could go into Sunken Temple or think about hitting Blackrock Depths soon, parties started to be advertised a lot more regularly on the LFG line.

Thankfully with the experience-gain changes of Patch 2.3, the “grind” isn’t nearly as painful as it would have been had I attempted to dungeon my way to level cap before.

Sooo, I keep my eye out as a priority for Zul’Farrak and Maraudon parties, and have found that late at night is the best time to find a quality group for it. Plus, I have a couple of friends who have toons this level and we’ve begun a Trading Cycle between ourselves to assist our lowbies:

Caught in the Trading Cycle

Sounds bad doesn’t it? Or, evil? Immoral? Nah…

It just means that myself and two of my Casual Guild guildmates with at least one toon at 70 and a regular connection to the guild’s Ventrilo server a few evenings a week have decided to trade off dungeon runs in a cycle:

First, I took their level 40’s over to the Hinterlands and did the whole gamut to get the Mallet of Zul’Farrak, which takes about as long as a full instance clear when one can’t sneak by much in Jintha’Alor. We had enough players and warlock alts to be able to summon all three of one guy’s 38-42 toons as well as helping the Paladin get the mallet without having to run up and down to get them to the right spots.

The next evening we could get together, the Paladin hopped over to her Hunter and was going to run my Priest and our other friend’s Druid tank toon through Zul’Farrak, but another guildmate friend logged in and offered to take all three of us through, so we did that instead and the Pally agreed to take her turn another day.

Then, the guy with the 3 toons right near 40 took his turn and took us through Zul’Farrak on another evening.

The agreement is that we’ll just keep trading these favors amongst ourselves so our lowbies will get an excellent shot at loot and also advance more quickly towards Outland levels. We’re still hopping into PUGs when the opportunity arises, but it’s nice to have a friend’s assistance (and be able to offer assistance of my own!), too.

Beginning The Tailoring Collection Process

My Priest is a tailor, and at level 50 she’s going to be able to advance her Tailoring again for the first time since she was level 36. And it’s going to be expensive.

So, I’m going to do some research and see what all materials I need to get to 350 right as soon as I hit level 50, and then I can let the advancement flow more naturally to 375 as I approach level 70.

But for now, it’s time to sign off!

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