Tuesday, March 3, 2009

PUGifornia Dreamin'

Not, not the cute dogs. Sorry to get your hopes up. This is of course about the universally dreaded pick up group. Last night while I was leveling my Druid (I am now 2 bubbles from 77), I ran several PUGs. These PUGs went extremely well for the most part. Only one of them did we have any wipes, and much of it had to do with people just having their heads up their asses (AKA not killing the add in the Jedoga fight in Old Kingdom). For the most part, everyone I ran with seemed to be as least moderately skilled and know what they are doing. I think I ran 5 instances and my tanks included 1 warrior and 4 DK tanks.

While running these PUGs, I came to a realization. Not all PUGs are created equal. It seems to me that the PUGs you get into while leveling are much better than the ones you get into at the level cap. I think this is for a number of reasons. Many people leveling right now are just leveling an alt. Most likely this is a character that they played quite a bit during BC or before and they are just clearing the cobwebs off as they get bored with the end game. A lot of the PUG players at 80 seem to be guildless players wearing ridiculously bad gear trying to get into a heroic doing less than 1k dps. Every PUG I was in last night, almost all of the DPS was over 1k. I even had an elemental Shaman that was doing over 1500 at 75. I have seem people do much less in Archavon.

A lot of the bads skip all leveling dungeon content and end up trying to get into Heroics wearing green items from Zul'Drak. The people who are not bads will either pick up a bit of crafted gear or do some dungeons from time to time for gear upgrades. My druid is wearing all Northrend blues right now with the exception of a green trinket and an Outlands Idol (no, that is not a show). Basically, bad PUGS are made up people who have no idea about group mechanics. People that do not know what a DPS meter is. People that do not know to not AOE before the tank has a group clustered.

If you are looking for a decent pug, get into LFG and play with some players that are leveling. You may be pleasantly surprised.

2 comments:

Drazmor said...

That's nice to know. See, I knew there was a plus not getting into Northrend until months after it's release!

Ironhelm said...

I almost spit coffee across the office at the comment about AoE before the tank groups the mobs! So true!

Do yourself a huge favor and gather the mats/pieces of the Eviscerator set from a LW or AH - also, get the Jormscale Footpads not the Evisc boots if you are going to tank. Then have your bank toon mail them to you so that they are sitting in your mailbox enchanted and heavy borean armor kitted ready for you as soon as you ding!

I dinged 78 on my druid last night and equipping that gear immediately put me at over 22K health and over 29K armor with 30.5% dodge.

Makes a bear warm and fuzzy I tell ya!