How to: PuG with style
While guilds are focussing their runs on Ulduar there’s an unusual much of pugging going on in Northrend. Naxxramas, OS, EoE and VoA are all being ambushed by pugs left and right and there are very, very mixed reports on how these pugs go. While a lot of that depends on the raid lead, every single participant contributes to the overall outcome – especially in a pug.
I’ll skip the usual blather that lengthens my posts and get right to the stuff I found working for me. Of course these are subject to personal style, yet following up on them always helped me to at least have a good time, if not a good run.
Be clear about your expectations
What kind of pug are you looking for? Do you crave to farm gear and badges? Is success and speed important? Are you concerned about people’s attitude? Ask yourself those questions and make an image about what you want today. Some days you’ll want to farm and don’t care if people yell around in teamspeak, call names and kick underperformers. You’ll probably look for that. Other days you might just want to enjoy running a raid, no matter how successful. Just be clear.
Don’t hurry
It is a PuG. If you’re lucky you’ll find yourself in the situation of being the last invite, so things are gonna start soon. But it’s more likely you’ll be somewhere inbetween, and it’s gonna take some more time to fill up that group. So don’t hurry. Stay where you are, keep doing what you do, just stick around with the raid. If you’re doing dailies talk to the guy that invited you. Tell him to count you in and just give you a short /w as the raid fills up. If that’s already a problem for him you might not want to join his run anyways.
Classify the run
There’s a lot of pugs. There’s real pugs where one guy starts inviting people and just wants to fill up. There’s guild runs who fill in those 3-5 people they couldn’t bring themselves. There’s regular groups of mixed guilds who do that run every week. It might be an alt-raid, or a small guild who is still progressing. If in doubt what you’re dealing with, just ask. The more random people are invited the more unstable and slow the raid can get.
Check people
The armory is your friend. You can at least check healer and tank gear. But first and foremost you can check the raid leader. His gear. His achievements. His guild. The character might be an alt, so a look at the guild doesn’t hurt. If this guy’s main is ulduar 25 equipped there’s a good chance he’ll know exactly what to do. If it’s a main from a 7-man-guild with mostly dungeon blues things could get a little more rough.
Ask friends and guildies
Ask them about the people. They might know some of the guys you run with. They might know their guilds. They could help you get a more clear picture. Then, try to get friends and guildies on board. However that run will turn out, a brother in mind always makes it more fun (or more bareable).
Get a feeling
The most important time to me is the when the raid fills up. Watch chat closely and you’ll be able to figure out a lot of things.
- How do people talk to each other, what about manners?
- How do they talk about potential invites?
- Are friends and guildies being considered, is the raid leader taking suggestions?
- Is the leader confident and knows what he’s doing or does he not have a clue?
- Are they thinking about raid composition, beyond “x tanks x healers”?
- Are they taking specific encounters into consideration?
A 10-man Naxx pug that tries to bring in at least 3 ranged dps, two different healing classes, no more than 2 of each class and talks about their recent Kel’Thuzad kills has more chances to be successful than a pug that just stacks 10 people, having 5 melee dps, 2 same-class-healers, and an overall score of 6 deathknights. Not only is this group gonna loose valuable synergetic effects, they probably just care about “getting in fast”. Plus, there’s loot drama written all over it, too.
Be prepared, and offer help
If you are a cook or an alchemist, why not ask around if someone needs stuff? Offer your professions. Not only are you bringing something to the raid even before it started, you might as well make some good tip out of that. Tell people to bring the materials, and you’ll craft stuff right there. On the other hand, come prepared yourself. Have enough buff reagents on you. Carry buff food, if you’re not outgearing the place. Come repaired. If everyone else seems reasonable, you should do your best, too.
Get questions out of the way before the raid starts
First and foremost: If you want any drops, ask about the loot rules. There’s plenty of various systems out there, and they might use one you’re not familiar with. If there’s special items (like recipes, the key off Sapphiron, T-tokens) you’re interested in check how the run is gonna handle them. Loot drama is, in my book, an embarassing thing to happen in a group of adults, but still it’s there. Try to avoid that.
Something people hardly ever ask about a pug is the limits, and time.
- Are they gonna have a time limit?
- A wipe limit?
- A certain amount of bosses / a certain boss they want to get to?
- Is it “open-end”?
- How about breaks, afks?
- Is everyone gonna stick around, or are there people who already know they’ll have to leave in an hour?
Start off patiently
Finally, the raid starts. Now is the most important part for morale, the first couple fights, the first boss attempt. Be patient here. Most of these people very likely never played together, and have no idea how the others play. There might be different tactics mixing up, people who never were in that raid before crashing on people who only want to get through fast. There’s a good chance that within the first 10-20 minutes some people will leave, or be asked to leave. Don’t get discouraged, this is usually a very good thing, because it sorts out those with unmatching expectations or insufficient performance. This doesn’t necessarily strenghten the raid, but it’ll smooth it out.
Do not, ever, be the back seat driver
Nothing’s more confusing than different tactics mixed together. It’s horrible. If there’s a raid leader who has tactics, follow them. Yours might be better, but there’s a good chance there are more people with more tactics they also think are better. And then there’s some poor fool who doesn’t know the fight at all and is being bombarded with all those suggestions.
Stick to one tactic. Whoever explains it, support it. Help shutting up other back seat drivers. Back seat driving is bad. You might even learn something new, or at least that something doesn’t work. After a wipe or two you could suggest trying a different approach. Just don’t be pushy, and don’t try to force your own solution down people’s throats – just whisper the leader, don’t make him loose his face by publicly stating that “his approach sucks”. Usually, however, pretty much every tactic will work eventually if the group isn’t a complete mess, so just stick with it and brush the wipes off.
Keep a good mood
This actually might be the most important thing here. Remember that this is a game you and the people around you are playing, and you do that to have fun. So, however the run goes, as long as it’s worth sticking around you should keep a good mood. Joke around. Use those vanity pets and holiday-items, turn yourself into a snowman or a bunny. It is stupid. It helps.
About dropping out
The starting phase is your “feel free to leave” window. The more bosses die, the harder it will get to find someone replacing you. As you start to feel that this just isn’t your run you should start to prepare your dropout. No matter when it happens, follow some basic rules:
- Do it nicely.
- Do it politely.
- Tell people that you’re thinking of leaving and are looking for a replacement.
- Then do look for a replacement, and only as one has been found, leave.
Give the raid a chance to convince you to stay, you’ll be surprised by the effect a polite dropout-announcement can change things when there are decent people in the raid. Also, be clear about your reasons for leaving.
- “Guys, I’m sorry, this raid’s chat is more rude and offensive than I’m used to, I really don’t feel like sticking around for much longer.”
- “Guys, I’m sorry, the overall dps of this raid is way below what I’m used to, and I’ll not have any fun in this run.”
- “Guys, I’m sorry, but obviously I can’t bring the performance to this run that I should be bringing.”
- “Guys, I’m sorry, my son just fell down the stairs.”
Whatever it is, be clear, be polite, be neutral and don’t let yourself in on any flame war. If someone starts to get at you just brush it off. You’ll be out there soon enough, and they can have their flame wars without you.
One more thing: Never, ever, ever, ever drop out after you got your item. I know it’s tempting – that one piece you were there for finally dropped. You’re done here. Nothing more easy to fake a disconnect, or just plain leave. Don’t do it. This is a thing people will remember, and you’ll not be part of any further pugs they organize. Don’t even to it in a shitty run.
With a shitty dropout you’ll always prove that you’re nothing better than the raid you just left for it’s lack of what you think are the standards.
Final words
After all, pugs are always unpredictable. You can get all the good signs and end up with a wipefest after the first boss, just to be ID’d. Or you can already see things crumble, and then breeze through faster than you thought possible. Whatever happens, don’t take it too seriously. It’s nothing but a raid you don’t really need to do, so relax and enjoy the ride.
Good pugging, everyone!