Very True. I started to Tank MrT for a PUG group yesterday.
I should have known better but I had time to kill and stuff I wan't from there.
They started to pull mobs before all 5 were there. When I noticed only 3 of us had OMEN one said he wouldn't need it if I just tanked hard. I told him if he pulls aggro from me then he can tank it. When he died he said I owed him 3g for repairs lol. When they started getting obnoxious I wished them luck with there next tank and left group. I'm not the best tank by any means (that would be Krindle) but I'm definetely not the worst and have pretty good gear now so I will probably only group with guildies as GWJ'ers know how to work as a team and help each other.
My husband used to play a tank as his main & we pugged a lot. Never were in a guild before BC. It was really frustrating for him. Now he has an eppiced out 70 tank that is retired, he only uses his tank to mine ore... he plays a hunter now.
Yeah I'd say tanks are pretty much guild exclusives in general. No one wants to deal with random assh*les and big repair bills for the chance you could get ninja'd out of required gear. The only time I got close to tanking a PUG the past couple years was when we needed to bring in one or two DPS tops, but they were booted quick if they didn't know the drill.
Tanking (and healing) are by far the most frustrating aspects of the game, it's no wonder the highest burn out rate occurs amongst those that "take it for the team" when they could just be hanging in the back with a greedy DPS role. Words cannot express how awesome and easy runs were when I was hanging in the back nuking or slinging arrows
Tanks don't fight mobs, tanks fight their own group's inability to maintain agro because they are addicted to seeing big numbers.
I don't know...I've never really played anything but Warrior Prot, and I don't mind tanking anything. It's part of the deal. Love tanking, deal with a55hats.
Yeah, I dunno...when I was levelling, and then 70 but still gearing up, I used to PUG everything. The guild wasn't quite as active at the time, and it seemed like I could almost never find a full GWJ group for anything. So I'd PUG. I PUGed like a mother and no one ever suggested I should use a threat meter (although I now judge PUG people based on whether or not they use one, go figure).
Then again, I've always found in these little chats that I'm one of the most-tolerant folks around. I generally assume everyone will be competent, and that someone will be cool enough that they'll earn a spot on my (full) friends list.
Playing in PUGs with non-GWJ people is a key part of me experiencing our server's greater community. Another part is that I occasionally read the Blackhand forums.
Quote:
Would be a good idea. I plan to have Logan sit in for me when I am on my honeymoon.
- Legion, taking "keeping it in the family" to a whole new level.
As things are now, all Aesildur gets to do now is PUG. While I am not having as much fun as I used to with my GWJ friends, I've at least made some good friends in the process. Ironically, 80% of them are Tanks. I think there's a special dymanic to the Healer-Tank relationship so that when a pair hits it off, they stick together and befriend each other quite often.
In the end, the incompetent or impatient DPSers are much easier to replace. I know as a healer, if I find a tank I trust and enjoy grouping with, I almost always feel like we can overcome whatever hurdles are thrown at us. It's not to say that good DPSers aren't equally as valuable (they are!), but I think those two particular roles are so interdependant that PUGing in DPS when you have those two well coordinated/played isn't such a big deal.
World of Warcraft: Blackhand Server
* Sunseeker - Prot Paly (70) / * Aesildur - Holy Priest (70)
Steam Community: ShadeRaven
I read Matt's article, and I don't find pugging things to be that bad**. I posted a "how to get a successful heroic pug together" on the Negative boards, but really it's all about careful decisioning on your healer and dps.
I think if you always take a rezzer (if you have a resto druid, make sure you're a paladin tank or have a shaman/shadow priest for dps), make sure you've got good crowd control (it's tough to justifya dps warrior pug or an enhancement shaman pug for that reason alone), and armory EVERYONE to check guild tag and gear before starting, a tank can navigate pugs pretty easily. If someone's armory guild tag doesn't match their current tag, you can assume they left / were booted for a reason.
What you *don't* want to do is join those "xxx heroic, just need tank then ready to roll" groups. Always form a group from scratch. And tanks /friend the intelligent dps, trust me. my friends list is nothing but mage/lock/hunters who are aggro conscious and cc capable. Dilgus is actually on that list since our very successful Bm run, and ivan's been on there forever. =)
**I can tell you though that if a mage rolled on commendation like Prima did, there would be F bombs dropped in /party.
Ouch! I think I would be crackin some skulls if Commendation didn't go to the tank who needed it. That, and crying, in a fetal position.
I did some pugging myself only a few months back, and the main reason was because I was logging on at about 10pm server or later and wanted to run something everyone else had already done that day. If you're a good tank, your dps and healers love you and will hunt you down everytime you're online after that. During a one week period, I had I think 7 offers from raiding guilds to join them, and got invited to other guild's raids, and was allowed to roll on anything I needed. Unfortunately I didn't get anything out of it, but it was still fun for the time
However, you'll always remember the bad pugs. The ones the article talks about. If you can expect the bad group to show up, and you get real people, count yourself lucky. Also, if you're trying to get something from the run and isn't a quest item, or "for you only" (like badges), run it with people you trust.
Only pugs I do are ones where guildies aren't online/available and I am only running it for the dailies or badges.
Copingsaw wrote:
Honestly, I think if we could get Krindle to tank Al Qaeda, this world would be a much safer place.
I don't PuG simply because I don't have time. I can't even run all the heroics my own guild would like to have me on.
The problem is that most folks roll a sexy DPS class and don't ever bother leveling or running instances with a "support" class like a tank or a healer. My biggest gripe is hearing people crying about not having enough of either class.
My response - if you don't like it, go out and level one yourself. Then you'll have no trouble finding a group for heroics and such.
Good Tanks dont pug because they are constantly asked to run something and have to beat off the masses as soon as they log on.
Oh my god yes. It's even worse when you have a few other 70's, and the second you hop on your DPS class someone's begging you to tank. And again. And again! Such is the ways a of meat shield though. It can be a lot of fun, but sometimes it's hard to just blend in when you know you will have at least 10 people hitting you up as soon as the little sound triggers on their friend's list to show you've just hopped online..
well the story doesn't seem to be exclusive to just tanks. Anyone could have an item being rolled on by another class in a PUG.
Sad thing about PUGs is the quality has gone way down since WoW first came out. I use to be able to do all the old high level dungeons in PUGs just fine. Then Molten Core came out and everyone needed guilds and since then as raiding got more popular, PUG quality has gone down.
I guess the reason for this is the quality players are now in guilds and never have a reason to PUG, and the non quality players can't get in guilds, at least raiding guilds, and have to PUG.
Sad thing about PUGs is the quality has gone way down since WoW first came out. I use to be able to do all the old high level dungeons in PUGs just fine. Then Molten Core came out and everyone needed guilds and since then as raiding got more popular, PUG quality has gone down.
I could not disagree more. I think the general quality of people pugging has increased exponentially since the "lfm dm tribute" days. Between the /lfm channel and the armory, I can pinpoint exactly who I want to fill in a spot. I love the current pug environment. =)
Oh my god yes. It's even worse when you have a few other 70's, and the second you hop on your DPS class someone's begging you to tank. And again. And again! Such is the ways a of meat shield though. It can be a lot of fun, but sometimes it's hard to just blend in when you know you will have at least 10 people hitting you up as soon as the little sound triggers on their friend's list to show you've just hopped online..
Weirdest thing happened to me a couple days ago. I was playing Gloc, my dps alt, and I get a tell from someone I've never heard of before:
"Do you happen to have a Prot Pally alt?"
I told them I did and they asked me if I could run ZA with them. I did a /who and found out it was from a guild where I don't know anyone there on either toon. I have no idea how they found me on my ALT let alone who I was. Does this mean I'm famous...or infamous?
The way I figure, is I pugged a couple of times with one raiding guild, and had let one person there know I had an alt if they needed me, and they could contact me that way. So friend of a friend looking for a prot pally tank for ZA, someone that can handle it must be extremely rare on our server, cause it looks like I'm a wanted man if my name is getting pasted around. The ego is definitely boosted, I guess I'm a legend!
Copingsaw wrote:
Honestly, I think if we could get Krindle to tank Al Qaeda, this world would be a much safer place.
I have anonymous hordie hunter alt I tool around with every so often just for kicks and to see horde content (which I've never seen). Recently got an offer to run Razorfen Kraul, and figured "hey, cool, I've never been there, and I badly need some decent gear anyway". Start the run, and I'm the only DPS in the group. Pally, two warriors, and a priest (healer priest). The prot warrior couldn't tank because he "didn't have a shield, so he'll be on dps". The arms warrior tanked instead. The paladin did dps/offtanking.
They wouldn't let me handle any pulls, wouldn't leave me room for frost traps (after the first five pulls I lost frost trap EVERY TIME because of their rampant consecrate/thunderstomp spam, I just gave up even trying to CC anything other than boss pulls), and they had the gall to tell me to "watch the pet" when my kitty body-pulled once due to being on the backside of the enemy they were fighting too close to the next group as it was. Heck, I saved their backsides from one particularly bad pull with some very careful execution of what little CC I could manage. The priest was great, too, which helped, but the pally and warriors were horrible. "I don't have time for you to mana up, my rage will run out" the tank kept telling the constantly oom priest when we never, EVER stopped for drinks/food. I'd have let the fool die at that point, myself.
Anyway, I pass on some drops that while I could use, were more appropriate for the warriors/pally. We get to the third or fourth boss mob, and this awesome rare bow drops. I'm still using a level 21 green-grade gun at level 26, the bow is for a 27 (and I'm about two bubs from 27 at this point). I'm primarily a bow user as I just prefer them, but haven't run across a decent bow through drops or reasonably priced on the AH. I roll need, the others pass, but then the shield-less prot warrior says "ima roll need, kk? need a faster pulling weapon". WTF. He rolls need, wins the roll because my roll luck sucks, and I'm left speechless.
"Wow, what an ass." /disband
Hopefully they couldn't find finish the instance. I whispered the priest, apologized to him, and he said that honestly he was ready to quit before that anyway with what a bunch of tools those guys were, and he disbanded after I did since that was the last straw for him, too. Told me he'd be happy to run with me again anytime though.
Yeah you always run the risk of people who don't understand basic theorycraft but are afflicted with Power Word: Greed in pugs. In the Magtheridon pug I ran on Monday, the healer staff dropped, and one of the mages asked to roll on it; I knew the person, and he wasn't being mean intentionally, the person just had no clue about how the game worked -- if +heal > +dmg, then it's not a mage/lock weapon. Those, btw, are the problems that DKP solves. =)
Overall though I'd have to say my ratio of great/decent pug experiences vs my awful/unhappy experiences is probably 3:1.
Biggest pet peeve is priests who don't understand that MC is the best cc in the game, and demo warlocks who ask me to swipe tank instead of using seduce so they can keep their felguard out.
Very True. I started to Tank MrT for a PUG group yesterday.
I should have known better but I had time to kill and stuff I wan't from there.
They started to pull mobs before all 5 were there. When I noticed only 3 of us had OMEN one said he wouldn't need it if I just tanked hard. I told him if he pulls aggro from me then he can tank it. When he died he said I owed him 3g for repairs lol. When they started getting obnoxious I wished them luck with there next tank and left group. I'm not the best tank by any means (that would be Krindle) but I'm definetely not the worst and have pretty good gear now so I will probably only group with guildies as GWJ'ers know how to work as a team and help each other.
Smithysaboo - level 70 Dwarf Warrior
Alts:
Fathernelson - Level 10 Dwarf Priest
Oobas - level 36 Dwarf Hunter
Saboolock - Level 24 Gnome Warlock
My husband used to play a tank as his main & we pugged a lot. Never were in a guild before BC. It was really frustrating for him. Now he has an eppiced out 70 tank that is retired, he only uses his tank to mine ore... he plays a hunter now.
Schnuggles- 70 destruction warlock
Newark- 70 restro druid
Schniggles- 70 frost mage
Yeah I'd say tanks are pretty much guild exclusives in general. No one wants to deal with random assh*les and big repair bills for the chance you could get ninja'd out of required gear. The only time I got close to tanking a PUG the past couple years was when we needed to bring in one or two DPS tops, but they were booted quick if they didn't know the drill.
Tanking (and healing) are by far the most frustrating aspects of the game, it's no wonder the highest burn out rate occurs amongst those that "take it for the team" when they could just be hanging in the back with a greedy DPS role. Words cannot express how awesome and easy runs were when I was hanging in the back nuking or slinging arrows
Tanks don't fight mobs, tanks fight their own group's inability to maintain agro because they are addicted to seeing big numbers.
XBL: Swat R2 PSN: swatr2
I don't know...I've never really played anything but Warrior Prot, and I don't mind tanking anything. It's part of the deal. Love tanking, deal with a55hats.
Yeah, I dunno...when I was levelling, and then 70 but still gearing up, I used to PUG everything. The guild wasn't quite as active at the time, and it seemed like I could almost never find a full GWJ group for anything. So I'd PUG. I PUGed like a mother and no one ever suggested I should use a threat meter (although I now judge PUG people based on whether or not they use one, go figure).
Then again, I've always found in these little chats that I'm one of the most-tolerant folks around. I generally assume everyone will be competent, and that someone will be cool enough that they'll earn a spot on my (full) friends list.
Playing in PUGs with non-GWJ people is a key part of me experiencing our server's greater community. Another part is that I occasionally read the Blackhand forums.
Quote:
- Legion, taking "keeping it in the family" to a whole new level.
Xbox Live: Fedaykin98
As things are now, all Aesildur gets to do now is PUG. While I am not having as much fun as I used to with my GWJ friends, I've at least made some good friends in the process. Ironically, 80% of them are Tanks. I think there's a special dymanic to the Healer-Tank relationship so that when a pair hits it off, they stick together and befriend each other quite often.
In the end, the incompetent or impatient DPSers are much easier to replace. I know as a healer, if I find a tank I trust and enjoy grouping with, I almost always feel like we can overcome whatever hurdles are thrown at us. It's not to say that good DPSers aren't equally as valuable (they are!), but I think those two particular roles are so interdependant that PUGing in DPS when you have those two well coordinated/played isn't such a big deal.
World of Warcraft: Blackhand Server
* Sunseeker - Prot Paly (70) / * Aesildur - Holy Priest (70)
Steam Community: ShadeRaven
I read Matt's article, and I don't find pugging things to be that bad**. I posted a "how to get a successful heroic pug together" on the Negative boards, but really it's all about careful decisioning on your healer and dps.
I think if you always take a rezzer (if you have a resto druid, make sure you're a paladin tank or have a shaman/shadow priest for dps), make sure you've got good crowd control (it's tough to justifya dps warrior pug or an enhancement shaman pug for that reason alone), and armory EVERYONE to check guild tag and gear before starting, a tank can navigate pugs pretty easily. If someone's armory guild tag doesn't match their current tag, you can assume they left / were booted for a reason.
What you *don't* want to do is join those "xxx heroic, just need tank then ready to roll" groups. Always form a group from scratch. And tanks /friend the intelligent dps, trust me. my friends list is nothing but mage/lock/hunters who are aggro conscious and cc capable. Dilgus is actually on that list since our very successful Bm run, and ivan's been on there forever. =)
**I can tell you though that if a mage rolled on commendation like Prima did, there would be F bombs dropped in /party.
Ouch! I think I would be crackin some skulls if Commendation didn't go to the tank who needed it. That, and crying, in a fetal position.
I did some pugging myself only a few months back, and the main reason was because I was logging on at about 10pm server or later and wanted to run something everyone else had already done that day. If you're a good tank, your dps and healers love you and will hunt you down everytime you're online after that. During a one week period, I had I think 7 offers from raiding guilds to join them, and got invited to other guild's raids, and was allowed to roll on anything I needed. Unfortunately I didn't get anything out of it, but it was still fun for the time
However, you'll always remember the bad pugs. The ones the article talks about. If you can expect the bad group to show up, and you get real people, count yourself lucky. Also, if you're trying to get something from the run and isn't a quest item, or "for you only" (like badges), run it with people you trust.
Only pugs I do are ones where guildies aren't online/available and I am only running it for the dailies or badges.
Copingsaw wrote:
Super K - The "Anti-Wipe"
I don't PuG simply because I don't have time. I can't even run all the heroics my own guild would like to have me on.
The problem is that most folks roll a sexy DPS class and don't ever bother leveling or running instances with a "support" class like a tank or a healer. My biggest gripe is hearing people crying about not having enough of either class.
My response - if you don't like it, go out and level one yourself. Then you'll have no trouble finding a group for heroics and such.
http://www.sportsdigs.com/
Good Tanks dont pug because they are constantly asked to run something and have to beat off the masses as soon as they log on.
Always vigilient, and dies in the end
Amen
My ego enjoys the 7 immediate tells I get when logging on, my sanity wishes there were two of me to fill in more of the time.
Copingsaw wrote:
Super K - The "Anti-Wipe"
Oh my god yes. It's even worse when you have a few other 70's, and the second you hop on your DPS class someone's begging you to tank. And again. And again! Such is the ways a of meat shield though. It can be a lot of fun, but sometimes it's hard to just blend in when you know you will have at least 10 people hitting you up as soon as the little sound triggers on their friend's list to show you've just hopped online..
XBL: Swat R2 PSN: swatr2
well the story doesn't seem to be exclusive to just tanks. Anyone could have an item being rolled on by another class in a PUG.
Sad thing about PUGs is the quality has gone way down since WoW first came out. I use to be able to do all the old high level dungeons in PUGs just fine. Then Molten Core came out and everyone needed guilds and since then as raiding got more popular, PUG quality has gone down.
I guess the reason for this is the quality players are now in guilds and never have a reason to PUG, and the non quality players can't get in guilds, at least raiding guilds, and have to PUG.
Stories of Yesterday
The Home Tree
I could not disagree more. I think the general quality of people pugging has increased exponentially since the "lfm dm tribute" days. Between the /lfm channel and the armory, I can pinpoint exactly who I want to fill in a spot. I love the current pug environment. =)
Weirdest thing happened to me a couple days ago. I was playing Gloc, my dps alt, and I get a tell from someone I've never heard of before:
"Do you happen to have a Prot Pally alt?"
I told them I did and they asked me if I could run ZA with them. I did a /who and found out it was from a guild where I don't know anyone there on either toon. I have no idea how they found me on my ALT let alone who I was. Does this mean I'm famous...or infamous?
The way I figure, is I pugged a couple of times with one raiding guild, and had let one person there know I had an alt if they needed me, and they could contact me that way. So friend of a friend looking for a prot pally tank for ZA, someone that can handle it must be extremely rare on our server, cause it looks like I'm a wanted man if my name is getting pasted around. The ego is definitely boosted, I guess I'm a legend!
Copingsaw wrote:
Super K - The "Anti-Wipe"
Hell, this topic should be "why no one PUG's".
I have anonymous hordie hunter alt I tool around with every so often just for kicks and to see horde content (which I've never seen). Recently got an offer to run Razorfen Kraul, and figured "hey, cool, I've never been there, and I badly need some decent gear anyway". Start the run, and I'm the only DPS in the group. Pally, two warriors, and a priest (healer priest). The prot warrior couldn't tank because he "didn't have a shield, so he'll be on dps". The arms warrior tanked instead. The paladin did dps/offtanking.
They wouldn't let me handle any pulls, wouldn't leave me room for frost traps (after the first five pulls I lost frost trap EVERY TIME because of their rampant consecrate/thunderstomp spam, I just gave up even trying to CC anything other than boss pulls), and they had the gall to tell me to "watch the pet" when my kitty body-pulled once due to being on the backside of the enemy they were fighting too close to the next group as it was. Heck, I saved their backsides from one particularly bad pull with some very careful execution of what little CC I could manage. The priest was great, too, which helped, but the pally and warriors were horrible. "I don't have time for you to mana up, my rage will run out" the tank kept telling the constantly oom priest when we never, EVER stopped for drinks/food. I'd have let the fool die at that point, myself.
Anyway, I pass on some drops that while I could use, were more appropriate for the warriors/pally. We get to the third or fourth boss mob, and this awesome rare bow drops. I'm still using a level 21 green-grade gun at level 26, the bow is for a 27 (and I'm about two bubs from 27 at this point). I'm primarily a bow user as I just prefer them, but haven't run across a decent bow through drops or reasonably priced on the AH. I roll need, the others pass, but then the shield-less prot warrior says "ima roll need, kk? need a faster pulling weapon". WTF. He rolls need, wins the roll because my roll luck sucks, and I'm left speechless.
"Wow, what an ass." /disband
Hopefully they couldn't find finish the instance. I whispered the priest, apologized to him, and he said that honestly he was ready to quit before that anyway with what a bunch of tools those guys were, and he disbanded after I did since that was the last straw for him, too. Told me he'd be happy to run with me again anytime though.
WTH is wrong with people?
Yeah you always run the risk of people who don't understand basic theorycraft but are afflicted with Power Word: Greed in pugs. In the Magtheridon pug I ran on Monday, the healer staff dropped, and one of the mages asked to roll on it; I knew the person, and he wasn't being mean intentionally, the person just had no clue about how the game worked -- if +heal > +dmg, then it's not a mage/lock weapon. Those, btw, are the problems that DKP solves. =)
Overall though I'd have to say my ratio of great/decent pug experiences vs my awful/unhappy experiences is probably 3:1.
Biggest pet peeve is priests who don't understand that MC is the best cc in the game, and demo warlocks who ask me to swipe tank instead of using seduce so they can keep their felguard out.
I once had a warlock roll need on the Cruel Barb.
IronClad Online: PurEvil